126 Quotes by Herman Wouk

Either war is finished, or we are.

He’s too clever to be wise, if that makes any sense. Very.

Money is a very pleasant thing, Willie, and I think you can trade almost anything for it wisely except the work you really want to do. If you sell out your time for a comfortable life, and give up your natural work, I think you lose the exchange. There remains an inner uneasiness that spoils the comforts.

What did they care if the rabbis who found them with the books of haskala, of enlightenment, called them epicureans, atheists, breakers of the wall? These old epithets they began to take as names of honor. Out of their ranks came the minds and spirits that created modern Zionism. The fact that Zionism was cradled against the separatist learning of the old yeshivas colors the state of Israel to this hour.

Conformity is evil when it distorts, flattens, and erases fruitful ways, strong ideas, natural identities; it is evil when it is a steamroller. But a man cannot escape being part of a milieu – and a recognizable part – unless he flees naked to a cave, never to return.

About the nicest thing God ever invented was alcohol. He’s proud of it, too. The Bible’s full of kind remarks about booze.

Neville did a remarkable simulation of running in fourteen directions at once, whimpering, screeching, and snapping his teeth. The seder stopped.

In Judaism praying for benefits is a very small part of the liturgy. Most of it is commitment of one’s fortunes to God, and meditation on sacred writings which put in clear words the few great points of our religion. Its daily aim is a renewal of religious energy through an act which declares one’s Jewish identity and one’s hope in the Lord.

But war is no respecter of limits, it is by definition harsh and inhuman, and there is no preparing for it.