I think a fictional invention grows according to its own development, not the author's. Characters in fiction are not simply as alive… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
Sometimes writing has to be forced. In starting out, the shape and timbre and texture of what is to come is an… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
I think it is serious to have good sales. As I learned belatedly, the more you sell, the more publishers pay attention… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
Hebrew in America has a bemusing past. The Puritans, out of scriptural piety, once dreamed of establishing Hebrew as the national language. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
In an essay, you have the outcome in your pocket before you set out on your journey, and very rarely do you… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
If I've ever regretted anything, it was putting all my eggs in one basket, holing up and kneeling at the altar of… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
Novelists go about the strenuous business of marrying and burying their people, or else they send them to sea, or to Africa,… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
History ... isn't simply what has happened. It's a judgment on what has happened. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
The novelist's intuition for the sacred differs from the translator's interrogation of the sacred. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Godlessness invariably produces vulgarity. Civilization is the product of belief. — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
