Chaim Potok

“I’ve never known of a serious artist who was happy. Except maybe Rubens.”

— Chaim Potok

“I walked the streets and tasted the golden sun that lay across the city.”

— Chaim Potok

“Perhaps. But it is childish to think of what might have been.”

— Chaim Potok

“Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! Thou art the Potter and I am the clay.”

— Chaim Potok

“Great artists make the entire world their home.”

— Chaim Potok

“Devorah told me, “Our daughter is grown,” and there were tears in her eyes.”

— Chaim Potok

“Weeks of longing and solitude: twin muses of creation.”

— Chaim Potok

“...a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.”

— Chaim Potok

“I held it close to my face and smelled the ink. I have always loved the smell of ink in a new…

— Chaim Potok

Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different.

— Chaim Potok

“Man sees only between the blinks of his eyes. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He…

— Chaim Potok

“A ram comes always as an astonishment. Do you know what a ram is, Benjamin? R-A-M. A random act of menschlichkeit.”

— Chaim Potok

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

— Chaim Potok

“I have always had this sense of books as lined up and waiting, patiently waiting, for people to find them;”

— Chaim Potok

“Without man, what is God? And without God, what is man? Everyone needs the help of someone to complete the work of…

— Chaim Potok

“A man must be forced to choose. It is only when you are forced to choose that you know what is important…

— Chaim Potok

It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you…

— Chaim Potok

“Is it better for man to live with uncertainty? Is the answer of Freud an answer? We should simply learn to accept…

— Chaim Potok

I get up around 6:30. I work from about 8:00 to 1:00, take a break for lunch, work again until about 5:00,…

— Chaim Potok

“The blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is…

— Chaim Potok

You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't…

— Chaim Potok

“And then I was crying too, crying with Danny, silently, for his pain and for the years of his suffering, knowing that…

— Chaim Potok

“And now you’ll be able to sail right through to the end.” “I’ve already written the end. It was the beginning I…

— Chaim Potok

“The customs people were angered by my drawings. I told them I didn’t make the drawings to cause trouble; I was an…

— Chaim Potok

“A man does not always remain at the same stage. He is always ascending or descending. When he reaches the top, he…

— Chaim Potok

Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher.…

— Chaim Potok

“How should a Jew feel? There we went through the seven gates of hell for matzos. Here I stand in matzos over…

— Chaim Potok

Something that is yours forever is never precious

— Chaim Potok

In Russia I went to a great yeshiva, and in America I work in a carnival.

— Chaim Potok

I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.

— Chaim Potok

“There are times when those who fear God make themselves very unpleasant as human beings.”

— Chaim Potok

“It's my world, best friend. And I haven't seen anything outside that's better.”

— Chaim Potok

I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.

— Chaim Potok

“God is merciful in what He sometimes lets us forget.”

— Chaim Potok

Art is a person's private vision expressed in aesthetic forms.

— Chaim Potok

“Take care of your father," he said. "There aren't many people like him around anymore.”

— Chaim Potok

There is in my work a very strong religious foreground and background. In the later work some of that tends to diminish,…

— Chaim Potok

Two hundred or more years ago most people on the planet were never aware of any reality other than the one into…

— Chaim Potok

“A man must sometimes be forced to make choices, for it is only by his choices that we know what a man…

— Chaim Potok

“We become like dead branches and last year's leaves and what the hell good are we for ourselves and the world in…

— Chaim Potok