Harold S. Kushner Quotes

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

There seems to be something in the human soul that causes us to think less of ourselves every time we do something wrong... And maybe it is good for us to feel that way. It may make us more sensitive to what we do wrong and move us to repent and grow.

The happiest people I know are people who don't even think about being happy. They just think about being good neighbors, good people. And then happiness sort of sneaks in the back window while they are busy doing good.

History is written by winners, so most history books are about people who win.

Our inability to see the beauty doesn't suggest in the slightest that beauty is not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with broad enough perspective to see the beauty.

Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.

I suspect that the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable - and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal.

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children.

You nourish your soul by fulfilling your destiny.

Prayer is simply coming into the presence of God. Because when you come into the presence of God, even the things you don't have matter a lot less.

None of us has the power to make someone else love us. But we all have the power to give away love, to love other people. And if we do so, we change the kind of world we live in.

If that were God's plan, it's a bad bargain; I don't want to have to deal with a God like that...My sense is God and I came to an accommodation with each other a couple of decades ago, where he's gotten used to the things that I'm not capable of and I've come to terms with things he's not capable of...and we care very much about each other.

Never attribute to malice or other deliberate decision what can be explained by human frailty, imperfection, or ignorance.

The small choices and decisions we make a hundred times a day add up to determining the kind of world we live in.

I wish i spent more time at the office.

The path to God is rarely a steady climb upward. We climb, we fall back, and we climb higher again.

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared. Life is not a resource to be used up, so that the older we get, the less life we have left. Life is the accumulation of wisdom, love and experience of people encountered and obstacles overcome. The longer we live, the more life we possess.

That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.

Love is not like a buffet line where the person in front of you threatens to take too much and leave too little for you. Love is like a muscle; the more it is exercised today, the more it can be used tomorrow.

Fun can be the dessert of our lives but never its main course.

God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.

We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there.

I am quite confident that the most important part of a human being is not his physical body but his nonphysical essence, which some people call soul and others, personality... The nonphysical part cannot die and cannot decay because it's not physical.

There is a Jewish notion that holiness is found with other people. To understand what life really is, one has to share it.

God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts in, God is all-powerful, His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us.

People are so busy chasing happiness- if they would slow down and turn around, they would give it a chance to catch up with them.

When facing a dilemma, choose the more morally demanding alternative.

Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people brings happiness.

It is because you have the typical American habit of seeing everything as a test. You see the mountain as your enemy and you set out to defeat it. So, naturally, the mountain fights back and it is stronger than you are. We do not see the mountain as our enemy to be conquered. The purpose of our climb is to become one with the mountain and so it lifts us up and carries us along.

When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: Ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.

No good deed ever goes wasted.

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared...The longer we live, the more life we possess.

We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus.

Given the unfairness that strikes so many people in life, I would rather believe in a God of limited power and unlimited love and justice, rather than the other way around.

The soul is not a physical entity, but instead refers to everything about us that is not physical - our values, memories, identity, sense of humor. Since the soul represents the parts of the human being that are not physical, it cannot get sick, it cannot die, it cannot disappear. In short, the soul is immortal.

One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick.

I'm not perfect, ... But i'm enough

Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for.

There is no right way to do a wrong thing.

I said in an interview at the time that God's job is not to make sick people healthy. That's the doctors' job. God's job is to make sick people brave.

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.

Our society puts too much emphasis on finding someone who will love you; our culture focuses too much on being loved and not enough on being a loving person.