Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American-Jewish short story writer, novelist, and essayist. Read full biography of Cynthia Ozick →
I am proudest of that first novel, 'Trust,' of anything I have written. I don't think I've had such intense energy since.
Among contemporaries, I hugely admire Alice Munro, our Chekhov, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and John Updike, American masters all. I also believe that... →
Auden is a poet - no, the poet - of unembarrassed intellect. Ideas are his emotions, emotions are his ideas.
I never conceived of not writing a novel. I believed - oh, God, I believed, it was an article of faith! - I was born to write a novel.
I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing.
I think that fanaticism is terrific. As long as you don't have to live with it. Oh, yes, nobody should marry a writer.
With certain rapturous exceptions, literature is the moral life.
A novel can be set in motion by an incident, a character, a location, a mood - by anything at all. Sometimes the stimulus can be an idea, which will... →
Hebrew as a contemporary language, especially for poetry, is no longer the language of the Bible; but neither is it not the language of the Bible.
Hebrew in America has a bemusing past. The Puritans, out of scriptural piety, once dreamed of establishing Hebrew as the national language.
I think most of my life I have not felt recognized.
Literature is for the sake of humanity.
I don't agree with the sentiment 'write what you know.'... I think one should write what one doesn't know. The world is bigger and... →
Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American-Jewish short story writer, novelist, and essayist.