Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.

Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.

We live in an age in which the imagination of the novelist is helpless against what he knows he is going to read in tomorrow's newspaper.

How Far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble?

A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.