Chaim Potok was an American author and rabbi. His first book The Chosen (1967), was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies.
Potok has had a considerable influence on Jewish American authors. His work was significant for discussing the conflict between the traditional aspects of Jewish thought and culture and modernity to a wider, non-Jewish culture. He taught a highly regarded graduate seminar on Postmodernism at the University of Pennsylvania from 1993 through 2001.
He bequeathed his papers to the University of Pennsylvania. The university houses a collection of Potok correspondence, writings, lectures, sermons, article clippings, memorabilia and fan mail. One of his admirers was Elie Wiesel, who wrote to Potok saying he had read all his books “with fervor and friendship”. (via Wikipedia)
Lets take a look at a few of her great quotes:
On Life:
Life is like the blink of an eye. What is that worth Nothing. But the eye that blinks – that is something. I guess I blinked, on accident. Sometimes, though, I have found accidents to be the most fortuitous events in my life. You meet the one person who reminds you what you are, what you do, how to be happy.
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 span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
(From: The Chosen)
The blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.
On Learning:
If a person has a contribution to make, he must make it in public. If learning is not made public, it is a waste.
(From: The Chosen)
On God:
He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy–every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.
(From: The Chosen)
A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.
On Love:
Something that is yours forever is never precious.
On Art:
I do not have many things that are meaningful to me. Except my doubts and my fears. And my art.
Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way.
An artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.
Art is a person’s private vision expressed in aesthetic forms.