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Cynthia Ozick

Cynthia Ozick Books

Writer

Cynthia Ozick is an accomplished American writer, born on April 17, 1928. Her works are renowned for their profound thoughtfulness and unique literary style, often focusing on moral and philosophical issues.

Art & ardor: essays

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Trust

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A Cynthia Ozick reader

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The Messiah of Stockholm: a novel

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Art and Ardor

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The Messiah of Stockholm

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Antiquities

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Foreign Bodies

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Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Charact...

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The Din in the Head

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The Shawl

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Trust: A Novel

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Dictation: A Quartet

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Fame & Folly: Essays

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The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories

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Related Quotes

“I think incessantly of death, of oblivion, how nothing lasts, not even memory when the one who remembers is gone.”

Death History Fate Memory Mortality Oblivion

Book:Antiquities

Source: Antiquities

“It seemed to Rosa Lublin that the whole peninsula of Florida was weighted down with regret. Everyone had left behind a real life. Here they had nothing. They were all scarecrows, blown about under the murdering sunball with empty ribcages.”

Regret Despair Misery Retirement Florida Ennui

Book:The Shawl

Source: The Shawl

“Certainly I favor tradition; I am aware that ancestral decorum ought not to be scorned. The aberrant is to be shunned. Life’s fundamental rhythms depend on sameness, not deviation. All this I long ago learned from my mother.”

Life Values Change Society Tradition Ritual Deviation Norms Conservativism

Book:Antiquities

Source: Antiquities

“She thought: How hard it is to change one’s life. And again she thought: How terrifyingly simple to change the lives of others.”

Life Change Destiny Control

Book:Foreign Bodies

Source: Foreign Bodies

“Not everything given away is recoverable!”

Book:The Messiah of Stockholm

Source: The Messiah of Stockholm

“Consider also the special word they used: survivor. Something new. As long as they didn't have to say human being. It used to be refugee, but by now there was no such creature, no more refugees, only survivors. A name like a number -- counted apart from the ordinary swarm. Blue digits on the arm, what difference? They don't call you a woman anyhow. Survivor. Even when your bones get melted into the grains of the earth, still they'll forget human being. Survivor and survivor and survivor; always and always. Who made up these words, parasites on the throat of suffering!”

Survivor Loss Of A Child Loss Of Hope Loss Of Identity Concentration Camp Survivor Survivor Syndrome

Book:The Shawl

Source: The Shawl

“I haven’t got the goddamnedest idea of what the hell you’re talking about. Kierkeguard, what’s that? Sounds like deodorant, which is to say that the whole thing smells as far as I’m concerned.”

Jokes Confusion Puns Smells Philosophers Olfactory

Book:Foreign Bodies

Source: Foreign Bodies

“The Germans are sentimental. Their word Heimweh. The English say homesick; the same in plain Swedish. Hemsjuk. Leave it to the Germans to pull out, like some endless elastic belt of horrible sweetness, all that molasses woe.”

Sentimentality Homesick German Language Heimweh

Book:The Messiah of Stockholm

Source: The Messiah of Stockholm

“Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work, not yours.”

World Form Dedication

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Real apprenticeship is ultimately always to the self.”

Real Self Apprenticeship

Book:Fame & Folly: Essays

Source: Fame & Folly: Essays

“We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection is taken as a full-scale revolution.”

Taken Revolution Scales Smallest Objections Placid

Book:Art & ardor: essays

Source: Art & ardor: essays

“In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: its the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.”

Stills Book Next Chance Written Offers Second Chance Chances Are Second Thoughts No Second Chances

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“An essay is a thing of the imagination. If there is information in an essay, it is by-the-by, and if there is an opinion, one need not trust it for the long run. A genuine essay rarely has an educational, polemical, or sociopolitical use; it is the movement of a free mind at play.”

Ifs Needs Mind Long Play Use Running Imagination Opinion Information Movement Educational Genuine Long Runs Essays

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“I think about fanaticism - oblivion awaits, especially for minor writers, so you have to be a fanatic; you have to be a crank to keep going, but on the other hand, what else would you do with the rest of your life? You gotta do something.”

Thinking Hands Keep Going Minors Oblivion Rest Of Your Life Fanatics Fanaticism Crank

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.”

Ifs Writing Firsts May Self Reading Born Fiction Class Teach Reader Wide Urges Self Knowledge Fiction Writers Reading Fiction

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“In 1952, I had gone to England on a literary pilgrimage, but what I also saw, even at that distance from the blitz, were bombed-out ruins and an enervated society, while the continent was still, psychologically, in the grip of its recent atrocities.”

Stills Gone Saws England Distance Ruins Continents Atrocities Pilgrimage Blitz

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“It is true that money attracts; but much money repels.”

Book:Trust: A Novel

Source: Trust: A Novel

“... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.”

Needs May Children Doe Art Poetry Sex Creativity Creative Poet Baby Labor Metaphor Motherhood Pregnancy Fulfilling Privileged Sailing Slurs Yeats Byzantium

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past--the whole life of a civilization--but also a major share ofthe Jewish future.... [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential.”

People Whole Past Lost Share Source Civilization Majors Intellect Whole Life Treasure Prime Holocaust

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Imagine an American Hans Christian Andersen, conceive of the Brothers Grimm living in Missouri, and you will approximate Howard Schwartz, a fable-maker and fable-gatherer seduced by the uncanny and the unearthly. In Lilith's Cave, he once again reaches into a magical cornucopia of folklore and fantasy and spreads before us, in enchanting language, the marvels and shocks of dybbuks, ghosts, demons, spirits, and wizards.”

Christian Spirit Language Fantasy Imagine Brother Spread Ghost Demon Shock Makers Caves Wizards Fables Folklore Uncanny Enchanting Missouri Lilith Grimm Brothers Grimm

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.”

Novel Comic Classic Max Elixir

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Awe consumes any brand that ignites it.”

Fame Brands Awe Admiration Ignite

Book:The Messiah of Stockholm

Source: The Messiah of Stockholm

“Old saws have no teeth.”

Saws Advice Teeth

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“To desire to be what one can be is purpose in life. There are no exterior forces. There are only interior forces. Who squanders talent praises death.”

Desire Purpose Force Talent Ambition Praise Purpose Of Life Interiors Exterior

Book:The Din in the Head

Source: The Din in the Head

“a. Critics: people who make monuments out of books. b. Biographers: people who make books out of monuments. c. Poets: people who raze monuments. d. Publishers: people who sell rubble. e. Readers: people who buy it.”

People Book Literature Poet Reader Sells Critics Publishers Monument Biographers Rubble

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“Godlessness invariably produces vulgarity. Civilization is the product of belief.”

Belief Produce Products Civilization Vulgarity Godlessness

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Whoever mourns the dead mourns himself.”

Death Grief Mourn

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“Death persecutes before it executes.”

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“very bright teeth as big and orderly as piano keys.”

Bigs Faces Keys Teeth Piano Orderly Piano Keys

Book:Dictation: A Quartet

Source: Dictation: A Quartet

“The trouble with happiness is that it never notices itself.”

Happiness Trouble

Book:Trust: A Novel

Source: Trust: A Novel

“History ... isn't simply what has happened. It's a judgment on what has happened.”

History Happened Judgment

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection to anything at all is taken as a full-scale revolution. Should any soul speak up in favor of the obvious, it is taken as a symptom of the influence of the left, the right, the pink, the black, the dangerous. An idea for its own sake - especially an obvious idea - has no respectability.”

Should Ideas Soul Left Speak Black Taken Influence Dangerous Revolution Sake Obvious Favors Scales Smallest Symptoms Objections Respectability Placid

Book:Art & ardor: essays

Source: Art & ardor: essays

“Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.”

Firsts Two Time Impression Two Things First Impression

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“What we think we are surely going to do, we don't do; and what we never intended to do, we may one day notice that we have done, and done, and done.”

Thinking May Done One Day

Book:Art & ardor: essays

Source: Art & ardor: essays

“The secular Jew is a figment; when a Jew becomes a secular person he is no longer a Jew.”

Persons Jew Secular Figments

Book:Art & ardor: essays

Source: Art & ardor: essays

“Language makes culture, and we make a rotten culture when we abuse words.”

Culture Language Abuse Rotten

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“literature is an instrument of a culture, not a summary of it.”

Culture Literature Instruments Summary

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“In the compact between novelist and reader, the novelist promises to lie, and the reader promises to allow it.”

Lying Reading Reader Promise Novelists Compact

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“I would distinguish between a visitor and a pilgrim: both will come to a place and go away again, but a visitor arrives, a pilgrim is restored. A visitor passes through a place; the place passes through the pilgrim.”

Travel Going Away Visitors Pilgrim

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“All politicians know that every 'temporary' political initiative promised as a short-term poultice stays on the books forever.”

Knows Book Political Politics Term Forever Politician Temporary Initiative Short Term

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“Resentment is a communicable disease and should be quarantined.”

Should Disease Resentment Communicable Diseases

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“He who cries, 'What do I care about universality? I only know what is in me,' does not know even that.”

Knows Doe Care Cry I Care Universality

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are.”

Stills Habit Reverence Status Quo Alas Doubtful

Book:Art & ardor: essays

Source: Art & ardor: essays

“Time heals all things but one: Time.”

Time All Things Heal One Time Time Heals Time Heals All

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“It is useless either to hate or to love truth - but it should be noticed.”

Should Truth Hate Useless Truth Love

Book:Trust

Source: Trust

“Invention despoils observations, insinuation invalidates memory. A stewpot of bad habits, all of it - so that imaginative writers wind up, by and large, a shifty crew, sunk in distortion, misrepresentation, illusion, imposture, fakery.”

Memories Wind Habit Illusion Invention Observation Crew Imaginative Distortion Bad Habits Misrepresentation

Book:Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character: And Other Essays on Writing

Source: Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character: And Other Essays on Writing

“To be any sort of competent writer one must keep one's psychological distance from the supreme artists.”

Artist Distance Supreme Psychological Competent

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“One must avoid ambition in order to write. Otherwise something else is the goal: some kind of power beyond the power of language. And the power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.”

Writing Kind Seems Order Language Goal Ambition Entitled Power Of Language

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Paradise is only for those who have already been there.”

Paradise Native American

Book:A Cynthia Ozick reader

Source: A Cynthia Ozick reader

“There's a paradox in rereading. You read the first time for rediscovery: an encounter with the confirming emotions. But you reread for discovery: you go to the known to figure out the workings of the unknown, the why of the familiar how.”

Firsts Emotion Known Figures Discovery First Time Familiar Encounters Paradox Rereading Rediscovery

Author:Cynthia Ozick

About the Author

Born: April 17, 1928
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 101

Related Topics

Writing Language Ifs Book Firsts Ideas Imagination Literature Reader Doe

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Art & ardor: essaysRelated source material

TrustRelated source material

A Cynthia Ozick readerRelated source material

The Messiah of Stockholm: a novelRelated source material

Art and ArdorRelated source material

The Messiah of StockholmRelated source material

AntiquitiesRelated source material

Foreign BodiesRelated source material

Portrait of the Artist as a Bad Character: And Other Essays on WritingRelated source material

The Din in the HeadRelated source material

The ShawlRelated source material

Trust: A NovelRelated source material

Dictation: A QuartetRelated source material

Fame & Folly: EssaysRelated source material

The Pagan Rabbi and Other StoriesRelated source material

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