Life is that which - pressingly, persistently, unfailingly, imperially - interrupts. Cynthia Ozick More Quotes by Cynthia Ozick More Quotes From Cynthia Ozick I was so mad at my agent. I had polished and polished and polished [the play], and he referred to it as a draft. I wrote him a bitter letter: How can you call this a draft? I don't do drafts! By now I've done 18, and its turning, in the rehearsal room, into a 19th. Cynthia Ozick maddoneplay Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter. Cynthia Ozick passionmatterfeelings The imagination has resources and intimations we don't even know about. Cynthia Ozick resourcesimaginationknows One reason writers write is out of revenge. Cynthia Ozick revengereasonwriting Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk - a free fall, a loose splash, a spill. Cynthia Ozick readingbookfall I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer. Cynthia Ozick careersuseanimal Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work, not yours. Cynthia Ozick dedicationformworld Real apprenticeship is ultimately always to the self. Cynthia Ozick apprenticeshiprealself What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past--the whole life of a civilization--but also a major share ofthe Jewish future.... [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential. Cynthia Ozick civilizationpeoplepast No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader. Cynthia Ozick readingselfwriting Awe consumes any brand that ignites it. Cynthia Ozick igniteadmirationfame very bright teeth as big and orderly as piano keys. Cynthia Ozick teethpianokeys It is true that money attracts; but much money repels. Cynthia Ozick In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities. Cynthia Ozick atrocitiesdistancegone Old saws have no teeth. Cynthia Ozick teethsawsadvice I think about fanaticism - oblivion awaits, especially for minor writers, so you have to be a fanatic; you have to be a crank to keep going, but on the other hand, what else would you do with the rest of your life? You gotta do something. Cynthia Ozick rest-of-your-lifehandsthinking An essay is a thing of the imagination. If there is information in an essay, it is by-the-by, and if there is an opinion, one need not trust it for the long run. A genuine essay rarely has an educational, polemical, or sociopolitical use; it is the movement of a free mind at play. Cynthia Ozick educationalplayrunning In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: its the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance. Cynthia Ozick second-chancenextbook We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection is taken as a full-scale revolution. Cynthia Ozick scalesrevolutiontaken Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. Cynthia Ozick comicmaxclassic
