Author: Cynthia Ozick

Cites

• Paul Celan (1)
  • IN: The Shawl (1980) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: dein goldenes Haar Margarete dein aschenes Haar Sulamith
    FROM: Todesfuge, (1948), Poem, Germany
• Bruno Schulz (2)
  • IN: The Mesiah of Stockholm (1987) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: My father never tired of glorifying this extraordinary element -- matter. "There is no dead matter," he taught us, "lifelessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life. The range of these forms is infinite and their shades and nuances limitless. The Demiurge was in possession of important and interesting creative recipes. Thanks to them, he created a multiplicity of species which renew themselves by their own devices. No one knows whether these recipes will ever be reconstructed. But this is unnecessary, because even if the classical methods of creation should prove inaccessible for evermore, there still remain some illegal methods, an infinity of heretical and criminal methods.
    FROM: The Street of Crocodiles, (1992), Book, Poland
  • IN: The Messiah of Stockholm (1987) Biological Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: My father never tired of glorifying this extraordinary element— matter. “There is no head matter,” he taught us. “Life-lessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life. The range of these forms is infinite and their shades and nuances limitless. The Demiurge was in possession of important and interesting creative recipes. Thank to them, he created a multiplicity of species which renew themselves by their own devices. No one knows whether these recipes will ever be reconstructed. But this is unnecessary, because even if the classical methods of creation should prove inaccessible for evermore, there still remain some illegal methods, an infinity of heretical and criminal methods.”
    FROM: The Street of Crocodiles, (1934), Book, Ukraine
• Aleksandr Pushkin (1)
  • IN: Trust (1966) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: "Everything is mine," said gold. "Everything is mine," said iron. "I'll buy everything," said gold. "I'll take everything," said iron.
    FROM: NULL, (None), [NA], Russia
• Enoch Vand (1)
  • IN: Trust (1966) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Offer the resourceful man one of two legacie: a mammoth trust fund by inheritance of wealth, or a minuscule fund of trust by inheritance of nature; and he will choose the one which least inhibits venturesomeness.
    FROM: unpublished aphorisms, (None), [NA], NULL
• Wallace Stevens (1)
  • IN: Heir to the Glimmering World (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The absence of imagination had Itself to be imagined.
    FROM: The Plain Sense of Things, (1954), Book, US
• Frank Kermode (1)
  • IN: Heir to the Glimmering World (2004) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yet the world is full of interpreters... So the question arises, why would we rather interpret than not?
    FROM: The Man in the Macintosh, (1979), Poem, UK
• Enid Starkie (1)
  • IN: The Puttermesser Papers (1997) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Flaubert does not build up his characters, as did Balzac, by objective, external description; in fact, so careless is he of their outward appearance that on one occasion he gives Emma brown eyes; on another deep black eyes; and on another blue eyes.
    FROM: quoted in Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot, (1984), Conversation, Ireland
• Pär Lagerkvist (1)
  • IN: The Messiah of Stockholm (1987) Biological Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Jag är stjärnan som speglar sig i dig. Din själ är mitt hem. Jag har inget annat. I am the star that mirrors itself in you. Your soul is my home. I have no other.
    FROM: Aftonland (Translated by W.H. Auden and Leif Sjöberg), (1975), Book, NULL
• Henry James (1)
  • IN: Foreign Bodies (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: But there are two quite distinct things—given the wonderful place he’s in— that may have happened to him. One is that he may have got brutalized. The other is that he may have got refined.
    FROM: The Ambassadors, (1903), Novel, US

Cited by

• R. J. Ellory (1)
  • IN: A Quiet Belief in Angels (2009) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: What we remember from childhood we remember forever-permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.
    FROM: Metaphors and Memory, (1989), Book, US
• Neel Mukherjee (1)
  • IN: A Life Apart (2010) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: History isn't only what we inherit, safe and sound and after the fact; it is also we are ourselves obliged to endure.
    FROM: Public Intellectuals, (2000), Essay, US