It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.

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.

I believe in God but people are liars. It's those people who say they are appointed by God who I don't believe in.

There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.

The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.

No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.