Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.

Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different.

It is impossible to fuse totally with a culture for which you feel a measure of antagonism.

Each work seems to give me the most trouble at the time I'm working on it.

I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.

My name is Asher Lev... I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people; also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Gentiles for two thousand years.

It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.