The fate of the singers who, like my songs, went up in flame was also the fate of the books which I later wrote. All of them went up in flame to Heaven in a fire which broke out one night at my home in Bad Homburg as I lay ill in a hospital.
Shmuel Yosef AgnonThrough a historical catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome - I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.
Shmuel Yosef AgnonBut perhaps the truth newly discovered is itself only temporary and when new discoveries are made these truths too will be abandoned. But one truth remains for ever, and that is the search for truth.
Shmuel Yosef AgnonI am generally ashamed to walk out in new clothes. And why am I ashamed? Is it because I don't want to embarrass the others who don't have new things? Or perhaps because a new coat makes you stand out, and you seem to be clothes and nothing else.
Shmuel Yosef Agnon