Whoever utters 'Kafkaesque' has neither fathomed nor intuited nor felt the impress of Kafka's devisings. If there is one imperative that ought to accompany any biographical or critical approach, it is that Kafka is not to be mistaken for the… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
To say that such-and-such a circumstance is 'Kafkaesque' is to admit to the denigration of an imagination that has burned a hole in what we take to be modernism - even in what we take to be the ordinary fabric… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
History ... isn't simply what has happened. It's a judgment on what has happened. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
The novelist's intuition for the sacred differs from the translator's interrogation of the sacred. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
“The Germans are sentimental. Their word Heimweh . The English say homesick; the same in plain Swedish. Hemsjuk . Leave it to the Germans… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
To desire to be what one can be is purpose in life. There are no exterior forces. There are only interior forces. Who squanders… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
Imagine an American Hans Christian Andersen, conceive of the Brothers Grimm living in Missouri, and you will approximate Howard Schwartz, a fable-maker and fable-gatherer… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
I think a fictional invention grows according to its own development, not the author's. Characters in fiction are not simply as alive as you… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
I don't agree with the sentiment 'write what you know.'... I think one should write what one doesn't know. The world is bigger and… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
An essay is a thing of the imagination. If there is information in an essay, it is by-the-by, and if there is an opinion,… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
There was a period... when I used to say, with as much ferocity as I could muster, 'I hate Henry James, and I wish… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
Godlessness invariably produces vulgarity. Civilization is the product of belief. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work, not… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past--the whole life of a civilization--but also a major share ofthe Jewish… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share
