Author: Chaim Potok

Cites

• Karl A. Menninger (1)
  • IN: The Chosen (1966) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes to escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him. In the same way the human being struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.
    FROM: NULL, (1930), [NA], US
• Ben Jonson (1)
  • IN: The Chosen (1966) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: True happiness Consists not in the multitude of friends, But in the worth and choice.
    FROM: Cynthia's Revels, (1600), Play, NULL
• Picasso (1)
  • IN: My Name is Asher Lev (1972) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, Spain
• Rainer Maria Rilke (1)
  • IN: The Gift of Asher Lev (1990) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Surely all art is the result of having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.
    FROM: Letter to his wife, (1907), Letter, Czech Republic
• Franz Kafka (1)
  • IN: The Promise (1969) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? Good God, we would also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
    FROM: Letter to Oskar Pollak, (1904), Letter, Germany
• The Rebbe of Kotzk (1)
  • IN: The Promise (1969) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Master of the Universe, send us our Messiah, for we have no more strength to suffer. Show me a sign, O God. Otherwise… otherwise… I rebel against Thee. If thou dost not keep Thy Covenant, then neither will I keep that Promise, and it is all over, we are through being Thy chosen people, Thy peculiar treasure.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, Poland