Cynthia Ozick Quotes

Real apprenticeship is ultimately always to the self.

Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work not yours.

After a certain number of years our faces become our biographies.

The engineering is secondary to the vision.

What we remember from childhood we remember forever-permanent ghosts stamped imprinted eternally seen.

When something does not insist on being noticed when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

It had always been my habit-- privately I felt it to be an ecstasy-- to enter, as into a mysterious vault, any public library. I was drawn to books that had been read before, novels that girls like myself had cradled and cherished. In my mind-- I suppose in my isolation-- I seized on all those previous readers, and everyone who would read after me, as phantom companions and secret friends.

The novella will be called, I think, “The Messiah of Stockholm.” It takes place in Stockholm. I’d better say no more, or the Muse will wipe it out.