Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozickis an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 April 1928
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
proudest trust
I am proudest of that first novel, 'Trust,' of anything I have written. I don't think I've had such intense energy since.
flows middle three
I find that writing comes from the three fingers. The thumb, the index and middle fingers. It flows out of the pen. Real writing comes out of your hand, for me, anyway,
attention figure good learned pay publishers serious time took
I think it is serious to have good sales. As I learned belatedly, the more you sell, the more publishers pay attention to you, and it took me a very long time to figure that out because I never thought that way.
numbers years age
After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.
figments secular jew
The secular Jew is a figment; when a Jew becomes a secular person he is no longer a Jew.
listening thrones ifs
To listen acutely is to be powerless, even if you sit on a throne.
admit burned circumstance fabric hole imagination intent modernism ordinary
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 and intent of language. Nothing is like 'The Hunger Artist.' Nothing is like 'The Metamorphosis.'
sacred
The novelist's intuition for the sacred differs from the translator's interrogation of the sacred.
beast brother brought encounter feeling fiction home included james library life public science somewhat swept
My first encounter with James was when I was seventeen. My brother brought home from the public library a science fiction anthology, which included 'The Beast in the Jungle.' It swept me away. I had a strange, somewhat uncanny feeling that it was the story of my life.
anatomy ask category people phrase reject
People often ask how I can reject the phrase 'woman writer' and not reject the phrase 'Jewish writer' - a preposterous question. 'Jewish' is a category of civilization, culture, and intellect, and 'woman' is a category of anatomy and physiology.