“Something that is yours forever is never precious”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“It's not a pretty world, Papa.'
'I've noticed,' my father said softly.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“... an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Oh, it makes a difference, I thought. And if it doesn't make a difference you will make it make a difference.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. I would not be the whore to my own existence. Can you understand that? I would not be the whore to my own existence.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Art is a person's private vision expressed in aesthetic forms.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Millions of people can draw. Art is whether there is a scream in you wanting to get out in a special way.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“My name is Asher Lev... I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people; also, I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians, a blasphemous manipulator of modes and forms revered by Gentiles for two thousand years.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“How should a Jew feel? There we went through the seven gates of hell for matzos. Here I stand in matzos over my head. So how should a Jew feel? You are an angel of God, and the Rebbe, he should live and be well, the Rebbe made miracles and wonders for me. At night, I tell myself it is a dream and I am afraid to wake up. If it is a dream, better I should not wake up, better I should die in my sleep.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you,.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Asher Lev, an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“It was no joy waking up after a dream about that man. He left a taste of thunder in my mouth.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Jestliže se chceš dotknout srdce nějakého člověka, musíš vidět jeho tvář. Do duše se nedostaneš telefonem.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“He should be careful of the influence of those with whom he consorts, and he runs a great risk in becoming a member of a large society, for large bodies tend toward the leveling of individuality to a common consent, the forming and adherence to a creed.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“An artist has got to get acquainted with himself just as much as he can. It is no easy job, for it is not a present-day habit of humanity.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“Every artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a ‘universal’ without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“The fact is that gossip, rumors, mythmaking, and news stories are not appropriate vehicles for the communication of nuances of truth, those subtle tonalities that are often the truly crucial elements in a causal chain.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“It’s not a pretty world, Papa.” “I’ve noticed,” my father said softly.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“An artist is a person first.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“I walked the streets and tasted the golden sun that lay across the city.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
“My father's right to shape my life had been taken from him by the same being who gave his own life meaning - the Rebbe.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from My Name Is Asher Lev
Chaim Potok
Born place: in Buffalo, New York, The United States
Born date February 17, 1929
See more on GoodReads
“There just isn’t enough cock in this world to be caught suckin’ and be called anything but a slut for life. The cynic in me would call it a bad habit, but that’d make me a whore in denial and if there’s one thing I am, it’s an honest bitch. Then again, you don’t get famous for being daddy’s little angel, but you can easily fall into the Infamy Bracket by preaching a made-up Bible quote now and again. They say I’m shallow, but I’ve made a living out off diving off the deep end.”
― Dave Matthes, quote from Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
“To attack is to believe you are mortal. Only mortals would believe anything has power over them.” �— Earth Sentinels”
― Elizabeth M. Herrera, quote from Earth Sentinels: The Storm Creators
“The World Has Need Of You”
everything here
seems to need us
—Rainer Maria Rilke
I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple.”
― Ellen Bass, quote from Like a Beggar
“I’ll get you wetter than a banana in a women's prison.”
― Courtney Lane, quote from The Sordid Promise
“Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; 28. For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.”
― The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, quote from The LDS Scriptures: Unabridged Complete King James Version Holy Bible /The Book of Mormon / Doctrine and Covenants / The Pearl of Great Price
Mademoiselle de Maup...
Der kleine Prinz
Design of Everyday T...
Sangre de tintaBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
