Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

But my gloom did not lessen. I knew that I'd had a bad dream, and I stood in the dark trying to recollect it. The second I closed my eyes, I was with the dead. They did things words cannot express. They spoke madness. ("Hanka")

We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.

One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality.

If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.

When we're trying to decide whether a leader is a good leader or a bad one, the question to ask is: 'Is he with the Ten Commandments or is he against them?' Then you can determine if the leader is a true messiah or another Stalin.