198 Quotes by Chaim Potok

The span of a man's life - that is nothing. But what a man makes of that span - that is something. A man must make his own meaning for life. Meaning is not automatically given to life.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

Honest differences of opinion should never be permitted to destroy a friendship.

A writer is a strange instrument of our species, a harp of sorts, fine-tuned to the dark contradictions of life.

As you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them --"ordinary things" is a better expression. That is the way the world is.

It's not a pretty world, Papa.' 'I've noticed,' my father said softly.

… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.

We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? . . .I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.

A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.