Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok
Chaim Potokwas an American Jewish author and rabbi. Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen, which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 February 1929
CityBuffalo, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Chaim Potok quotes about
american-author answers cease dilemmas effective normal offer systems versions
Apocalyptic versions are fall-back systems when the normal systems cease to offer effective answers to the dilemmas of existence.
accidents blink events eye fortuitous found guess life meet reminds
Life is like the blink of an eye. What is that worth? Nothing. But the eye that blinks - that is something. I guess I blinked, on accident. Sometimes, though, I have found accidents to be the most fortuitous events in my life. You meet the one person who reminds you what you are, what you do, how to be happy.
silence quality dimensions
I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.
home men people
Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.
art special way
Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way.
forever
Something that is yours forever is never precious
meaningful art doubt
I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.
pain creativity hands
I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine.
art eye world
Art begins . . . when someone interprets, when someone sees the world through his own eyes. Art happens when what is seen becomes mixed with the inside of the person who is seeing it.
heaven sake life-is
A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.
pain mean eye
We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? . . .I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.
men quality may
A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.
past plans persons
…everything has a past. Everything – a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand the present and plan properly for the future.
long world grows
… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.