Jewish Fiction Quotes & Sayings

In the end, I listen to my fear. It keeps me awake, resounding through the frantic beating in my breast. It is there in the dry terror in my throat, in the pricking of the rats' nervous feet in the darkness. Christian has not come home all the night long. I know, for I have lain in this darkness for hours now with my eyes stretched wide, yearning for my son's return. — Ned Hayes

Once taken off one task without completing the transaction, the mind continues to seek closure. Fight to stay focused on the task at hand. — Jeff Davidson

Never trust something that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die — Linda Kage

I argue that the Jesus of the Gospels is essentially a myth. The Gospels are largely fiction. They were created around the turn of the first and second century in order to give concreteness and substance to the Jesus who, as the Messiah, had appeared to Paul and his fellow apostles in ecstatic visions. — Alvar Ellegard

Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind. — Richard Powers

Ramon looked closely at the little guy as he ate. "Maybe he's Jewish. I mean, if Sammy Davis Jr. could convert to Judaism, why not a chupacabra? We should name him Harry Mendelbaum."
I held up my arms in protest. "You're all racist. Now shut up. We'll call him Taco von Precious of Svenenstein. There, everybody happy?"
"Isn't von the same thing as of?" Frank asked. "Wouldn't that be kind of redundant?"
"You're redundant," I said. — Lish McBride

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. — Leo Tolstoy

An important feature of good characterization in a novel is that the characters are dimensionalized and are not all of one piece. Human beings, as Singer noted, have contradictions. — Joseph Telushkin

Two dots an inch apart, as small and tidy as punctuation marks at the end of a sentence none of us could read. The sentence would have started somewhere just above her heart. — Barbara Kingsolver

See, you don't wanna be a Jew. Too much work--there's a lot of holidays but it's even more work. It's sanctioned oppression, it's God's tyranny. — Shawn Stewart Ruff

My point is this - if you want to be happy in showbiz (or any creative field), listen to that voice inside you. Even if it says "Fuck it" sometimes. Work with your friends. Avoid chasing fame or money. Just do what you want to do, when and how you want to do it. And if it's not making you happy, quit. Quit hard, and quit often. Eventually you'll end up somewhere that you never want to leave."
- Bobcat Goldthwait — Bobcat Goldthwait

In 1890, Donnelly published Caesar's Column, a dystopian science fiction novel set in the far-off 1980s, when the United States had become a capitalist tyranny controlled by a ruthless Jewish oligarchy. — Arthur Goldwag

All their lives Nath had understood, better than anyone, the lexicon of their family, the things they could never truly explain to outsiders: that a book or a dress meant more than something to read or something to wear; that attention came with expectations that - like snow - drifted and settled and crushed you with their weight. All the words were right, but in this new Nath's voice, they sounded trivial and brittle and hollow. The way anyone else might have heard them. Already her brother had become a stranger. — Celeste Ng

It's immoral to parent irresponsibly ... And it doesn't help matters any when prime time tv, like "Murphy Brown", a character who is supposed to represent a successful career woman of today, mocks the importance of the father by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice." Marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program there is ... Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at [such values] I think most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. — Dan Quayle

If God never gave me one more thing in my life, then you, right now, would be enough. You are my Dayeinu — S. Khubiar

When your concern is about future safety, anxiety arises. — Deborah Sandella

Jewish history is never simply about the Jews, but always about their relationship with the rest of society. — Abigail Green

It was an interesting night. I'd never been to a non-Jewish wedding, and Phelan assured me that this one was not the norm. The bride and groom got pissed as newts - he ended up passed out, sprawled face down in his own vomit, while she did the cancan on the bridal table, flashing something old, which apparently was nothing new. — Paula Houseman

He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from the blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down. — Michael Chabon

The problem is Jewish-American fiction that always ends with assimilation back into the community. — Joshua Cohen

My father's death when I was eighteen and his struggles as a Jewish immigrant provided me with the raw material, but for a long time I went from painting to fiction and then finally to poetry before I could find the right way of telling this story. — Philip Schultz