Actually, the true story of a person's life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable.

Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life.

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

Each soul must accomplish its task, or it would not have been sent here.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.

To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.