Cynthia Ozick

“The desire to be famous is a person's greed for his own self.”

“We are what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation.”

“If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.”

“To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination.”

“Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.”

“In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle for our own souls.”

“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”

“The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.”

“Translation is the purest, most intense form of reading.”

“Envy is the central fact of American life.”

“A footnote is a reflection of failure.”

“Doubt is my boon companion, the faithful St. Bernard ever at my side.”

“There is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.”

“To be an atheist is to maintain God is dead; I simply believe in an absent God.”

“Without the invented language of the novel, we are imprisoned in the rational.”