We were born to die; we were born to endure, on the way to death, sorrow-sorrow in manifold shapes. Cynthia Ozick More Quotes by Cynthia Ozick More Quotes From Cynthia Ozick Language makes culture, and we make a rotten culture when we abuse words. Cynthia Ozick rottenabuseculture literature is an instrument of a culture, not a summary of it. Cynthia Ozick instrumentsliteratureculture We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are. Cynthia Ozick status-quoreverencehabit Invention despoils observations, insinuation invalidates memory. A stewpot of bad habits, all of it - so that imaginative writers wind up, by and large, a shifty crew, sunk in distortion, misrepresentation, illusion, imposture, fakery. Cynthia Ozick illusionwindmemories The ordinary is the divine. Cynthia Ozick divineordinary Fiction does not invent out of a vacuum, but it invents; and what it invents is, first, the fabric and cadence of language, and then a slant of idea that sails out of these as a fin lifts from the sea. Cynthia Ozick vacuumsseaideas Resentment is a communicable disease and should be quarantined. Cynthia Ozick resentmentdiseaseshould All politicians know that every 'temporary' political initiative promised as a short-term poultice stays on the books forever. Cynthia Ozick politicalforeverbook Travelers are fantasists, conjurers, seers - and what they finally discover is that every round object everywhere is a crystal ball: stone, teapot, the marvelous globe of the human eye. Cynthia Ozick ballseyestones In the compact between novelist and reader, the novelist promises to lie, and the reader promises to allow it. Cynthia Ozick readinglyingpromise To desire to be what one can be is purpose in life. There are no exterior forces. There are only interior forces. Who squanders talent praises death. Cynthia Ozick purposeambitiondesire Life is that which - pressingly, persistently, unfailingly, imperially - interrupts. Cynthia Ozick life-islife One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said -- the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival. Cynthia Ozick revengehurtwriting Wars, invented and organized by the highest available consciousnesses (do the worms go to war? do the fish? do the paramecia?), are the planet's chief source and cause of torment. Cynthia Ozick consciousnesscauseswar Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey. Nothing shakes the heart so much as meeting-far, far away-what you last met at home. Cynthia Ozick homehearttravel To listen acutely is to be powerless, even if you sit on a throne. Cynthia Ozick thronesifslistening In real life wishing, divorced from willing, is sterile and begets nothing. Cynthia Ozick divorcedrealwish Comedy springs from the ludicrous; but the ludicrous is stuck in the muck of reality, resolutely hostile to what is impossible. Cynthia Ozick comedyspringreality Bohemia and all its works are vanished out of America; or, more exactly, bohemia has migrated to the middle class, and is alive and well in condo and suburb. Cynthia Ozick aliveclassamerica I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing. Cynthia Ozick obsessionwritingorder
