Quotes from The Promise

Chaim Potok ·  384 pages

Rating: (11.1K votes)


“It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“A choice tells the world what is most important to a human being. When a man has a choice to make he chooses what is most important to him, and that choice tells the world what kind of a man he is.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“It is strange how ideas can float about and be ignored until they are put into a book. A book can be a weapon...”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“I held it close to my face and smelled the ink. I have always loved the smell of ink in a new book.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“When the alternative is possible disaster, a man must gamble.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise



“One derives great moral strength from a cup of coffee," I said.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“You don't want to make mistakes with people. Sometimes when you make a mistake you lose a human soul.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“Williamsburg was stifling, narcotized by the heat.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“We become like dead branches and last year's leaves and what the hell good are we for ourselves and the world in a mental ghetto.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise



“A man must sometimes be forced to make choices, for it is only by his choices that we know what a man truly is.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“They become angry and ugly and they fight anything that's a threat to them. We have to learn how to fight back without hurting them too much.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“It's only a book. But what it means to write a book.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“He's not asking me to make a choice. He's telling me to take a stand. I'm either with him or against him. All or nothing. I'm disgusted with the whole business. I don't want smicha if the price I have to pay for it is to stop thinking.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“A man must be forced to choose. It is only when you are forced to choose that you know what is important to you.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise



“Take care of your father," he said. "There aren't many people like him around anymore.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“If everybody who had brains and doubts left Orthodoxy, we would be in a great deal of trouble.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“Verbal fraud is worse than monetary fraud.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“Perhaps. But it is childish to think of what might have been.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“How do I convince him that the way we study Talmud is not a threat?'

'But it is a threat, Reuven. I just told you it is a threat. In the hands of those who do not love the tradition it is a dangerous weapon.'

'Everything is dangerous in the wrong hands. How do I convince him that we're not a threat?”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise



“It's my world, best friend. And I haven't seen anything outside that's better.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“There are times when those who fear God make themselves very unpleasant as human beings.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“We will have many fights. But they will be for the sake of Torah.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“There’s a rabbi in the Talmud who even says there’s no atonement for lashon hara.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise


“Gossip, gossip, gossip. Rumors. Tongues. ‘Life and death are in the power of the tongue,’ ” he quoted in Hebrew.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise



About the author

Chaim Potok
Born place: in Buffalo, New York, The United States
Born date February 17, 1929
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