Guest Blog by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Almostgotits are still communing with Nature, so we thought we’d invite a much more articulate person to guest blog today. Allow me to introduce you to Isaac Bashevis Singer, a very dear man and very prolific writer in both English and Yiddish. It’s his birthday today, and these are his words:
A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.
Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.
For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store.
If Moses had been paid newspaper rates for the Ten Commandments, he might have written the Two Thousand Commandments.
Sometimes love is stronger than a man’s convictions.
The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment.
The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.
The waste basket is the writer’s best friend.
We write not only for children but also for their parents. They, too, are serious children.
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.
When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.
