Howard Jacobson

Everything is allowable in literature, but what is not allowable in criticism is objection on the grounds of probability.

— Howard Jacobson

There's a simple arithmetical logic at work. Build more unaffordable and not always architecturally sympathetic apartments, watch the rents rise, the tarts…

— Howard Jacobson

The novel is a thing of irony and ambiguity. That's at the heart of 'J', a world that has stopped arguing with…

— Howard Jacobson

I was a 'reverence for life' man - 'see life steadily and see it whole' - in my days as a lecturer…

— Howard Jacobson

How Donald Trump has come so far with so few words - how he even managed to keep up conversationally with all…

— Howard Jacobson

It is a nonsense to me when people come along and tell me not to be pessimistic; or that culture has always…

— Howard Jacobson

For me a Writing Day was an occasion for self-reproach and panic, a time to lament the passing of the years, stare…

— Howard Jacobson

Even the wordiest of men know there's a time to button it.

— Howard Jacobson

That a nation's statuary will reflect beliefs and attitudes that are no longer current or congenial hardly needs arguing. In most instances,…

— Howard Jacobson

“Was he a bad man or just a foolish one? He didn't feel bad to himself. As a husband he believed himself…

— Howard Jacobson

The young come in many guises: vigorous and passionate, vindictive and mean-spirited. And not every person over 65 is dozing in a…

— Howard Jacobson

To a philosopher like Nietzsche, the Jew is culpable not for rejecting Christianity but for inventing it.

— Howard Jacobson

Shakespeare's always been sitting on my back, since I began reading. And, certainly, as a writer, he's who I hear all the…

— Howard Jacobson

A novelist should make you realize nothing is stable. If you don't believe anything with robustness, you're doing something more radical than…

— Howard Jacobson

The Stop The War Coalition is a sort of home to Jew-haters because its hate music about Israel is so catchy.

— Howard Jacobson

I've always said if a woman is looking for a good husband, she should go for a Jewish man past 60. Jewish…

— Howard Jacobson

How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved?…

— Howard Jacobson

“So the mathematician and the artist are companioned in the same dark, and do obeisance to the same gods.”

— Howard Jacobson

Rejection is the one constant of human experience.

— Howard Jacobson

If you want a good life, don't succeed at anything too early or too well. And don't choose a profession that attracts…

— Howard Jacobson

Every time I criticize the anti-Zionists, they say, 'You are trying to silence us.' I don't deny there are some people who…

— Howard Jacobson

I won't go so far as to say that novels sell in inverse proportion to their worth, for just occasionally, someone like…

— Howard Jacobson

There was no question of ever sending us to Jewish schools... They wanted us out there. They wanted us to be lawyers…

— Howard Jacobson

I have made of Sydney, to which I sailed in 1965, a paradise beyond the powers of fancy.

— Howard Jacobson

When I first went to Israel, I saw soldiers pushing Palestinians around and thought, 'I can't stand this'. Then I'd meet somebody…

— Howard Jacobson