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Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer Books

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Shosha

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The Penitent

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Gifts

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Il ciarlatano

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Lost in America

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Passions

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“At moments when Herman fantasized about a new metaphysics, or even a new religion, he based everything on the attraction of the sexes. In the beginning was lust. The godly, as well as the human, principle is desire. Gravity, light, magnetism, thought may be aspects of the same universal longing. Suffering, emptiness, darkness are nothing more than interruptions of a cosmic orgasm that grows forever in intensity...”

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Book:Enemies: A Love Story
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“Yes, I lay in my grave. But if you lie in a grave long enough, you get accustomed to it and you don't want to part from it. He had given me a pill of cyanide, He and his wife and their son also carried such pills. We all lived with death, and I want you to know that one can fall in love with death. Whoever has loved death cannot love anything else any more. When the liberation came and they told me to leave, I didn't want to go. I clung to the threshold like an ox being dragged to the slaughter. ("Hanka")”

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Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now
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“When the ship approached the equator, I stopped going out on deck in the daytime. The sun burned like a flame. The days had shortened and night came swiftly. One moment it was light, the next it was dark. The sun did not set but fell into the water like a meteor. Late in the evening, when I went out briefly, a hot wind slapped my face. From the ocean came a roar of passions that seemed to have broken through all barriers:'We mus procreate and multiply! We must exhaust all the powers of lust!' The waves glowed like lava, and I imagined I could see multitudes of living beings - algae, whales, sea monsters - reveling in an orgy, from the surface to the bottom of the sea. Immortality was the law here. The whole planet raged with animation. At times, I heard my name in the clamor: the spirit of the abyss calling me to join them in their nocturnal dance. ("Hanka")”

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Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now
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“Wie ist es denn möglich, daß jemand einfach verschwinden kann? Wie kann jemand, der gelebt, geliebt, gehofft hat und mit Gott und sich selbst gehadert hat, einfach aufhören? Ich weiss nicht, wie und auf welche Weise, aber sie sind hier. Da Zeit eine Illusion ist, warum sollte nicht alles bestehen bleiben? Ich habe Sie einmal sagen oder jemanden zitieren hören, da die Zeit ein Buch ist, dessen Seiten man nur vorwärts, nicht rückwärts blättern kann. Wir können es vielleicht nicht, aber möglicherweise können es irgendwelche Kräfte.”

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Author:Isaac Bashevis Singer
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“I have heard from my father and mother all the answers that faith in God could offer to those who doubt and search for the truth. In our home and in many other homes the eternal questions were more actual than the latest news in the Yiddish newspaper. In spite of all the disenchantments and all my skepticism I believe that the nations can learn much from those Jews, their way of thinking, their way of bringing up children, their finding happiness where others see nothing but misery and humiliation.”

ThinkingWayBelieveChildrenHomeMotherFatherI BelieveNationsAnswersDoubtHeardOffersFindingsEternalNewsMiseryJewNewspapersSpiteFaith In GodSkepticismHumiliationWay Of ThinkingFinding HappinessYiddishDisenchantment
Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“The ghetto was not only a place of refuge for a persecuted minority but a great experiment in peace, in self-discipline and in humanism. As such it still exists and refuses to give up in spite of all the brutality that surrounds it. I was brought up among those people.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants.”

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Book:The collected stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
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“The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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