… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.

All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.

Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.

A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.

Art is a person's private vision expressed in aesthetic forms.

Yes, there is some thought about making a film of My Name Is Asher Lev.

It's not a pretty world, Papa.' 'I've noticed,' my father said softly.