Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I've discovered, is everything.

What happened was no accident. Everything was preordained. True, the will was free, but heaven also made its ordinances.

There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.

Those who run around with women don't walk tightropes. They find it hard enough to crawl on the ground.

The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning.

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.

Literature is the memory of humanity.