33 Quotes by Shmuel Yosef Agnon

People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen.

God in heaven sits on high and plays games with us. He has plenty to do up there, what with building worlds and then knocking them down again, breaking things up and then rebuilding them, and yet he can manage to put his mind even to a little grocer in his shop or to a babe in the cradle.

Through a historical catastrophe – the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome – I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.

People’s talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen.

On everything you need to hear other people’s opinions. It’s the only way to do things. You ask a friend’s advice and then between the two of you things somehow get clearer.

I am generally ashamed to walk out in new clothes. And why am I ashamed? Is it because I don’t want to embarrass the others who don’t have new things? Or perhaps because a new coat makes you stand out, and you seem to be clothes and nothing else.