people-from-galicia

"The activity displayed by the bishop-viceroy was astonishing, and seemed to be transmitted to all departments of the government."

"The reign of this ecclesiastic was remarkable for nothing except its extraordinarily brief duration."

"She took a quick, furtive look at him and felt her heart blushing. ("The Daredevil")"

"The town was in an uproar for some time after the news that Gitman, the Talmud teacher, was a freethinker. Imagine, if they hadn't realized it in time he might have converted the whole town. (first lines of "A Glass")"

"“Life, my dear, is a garden full of all kinds of plants,” Mrs. Zagretti said. “People, too, are plants that must be cultivated if they are to reach their highest potential.”"

"dancing around the tree as if it were a pagan god."

""Anyone who says that figs from a can are as good as figs from a tree isn’t worthy of a real, natural fruit — a fruit grown without chemicals or artificial fertilizer, a fruit as God created it." (Mrs. Zagretti)"

"The friendship has never crossed over the fence...The garden was the intermediary that brought them together. As the garden blossomed, so did the friendship — but never did it cross their thresholds."

"“A house without a picture, my mother used to say, is like a heart without a god,” Mrs. Zagretti says. “When I pray to God, I need a picture in front of my eyes.” “We Jews carry God in our hearts,” Betty replies with an edge in her voice."

""I understand people, maybe not with my brains but with something my ancestors planted in me." (Mrs. Zagretti)"

"“You must understand,” she [Mrs. Zagretti] says, “the fly was a kind of soul mate for me. Whenever I came home it flew to greet me. It followed me from room to room. At night when I got into bed it would circle around the night light. Around and around and around — it must have hatched in late summer so that its life was just beginning when all the others of its species had already died. I could feel the tragedy of being left all alone in the world — all ties severed and paths overgrown, all friends and relations annihilated without a trace, condemned by fate to live out its one and only life in anguish . . .” Betty wants to say that she knows many people who were orphaned and left alone in the world not because of a mistake in the calendar but because of the calculated, brutal, organized murder of a people."

"in a certain sense maybe I am a recluse. For me it’s enough to write a story and have it appear in a journal. Beyond that, being in public scares me. bl"

"At times I feel very pessimistic—for whom are we writing? Then I think of you—you, who give so much and receive so little, who go on with your work—and in Yiddish! Who am I to complain? bl"

"How wonderful to have a friend who reads, who understands, who offers a critical word that hits the nail on the head."

"the garden rewards me for my efforts. Red and yellow roses lift their faces to me, and the grass is green. Everything wants to live and to thrive. It’s a Jewish garden, with a little of this and a little of that. Everything comes together harmoniously."

"The unwritten letters are the most interesting; they come spontaneously, straight from the heart, and swim away with all the unwritten stories, the uninvented poems."

"Don’t worry that at the moment you’re not writing. Live a little! Nothing will be lost—it will come back to you with interest when you’re back at your desk"

"I salute you as a writer and urge you to write and write, for the good of Yiddish literature. Because your intellect, your fresh words and images, the flights of your creativity, are original, contemporary, and I would say zaftik [juicy]! We need you!"

"I’m glad you’ve undertaken to have your work translated into English. It’s important both for you and for Yiddish literature. The world should see what we’re made of, and know that we’re no less modern than other literatures."

"Everything you write is not only well written, but also interesting and easy to read. These qualities don’t always go together, but in your work they do."

"How well you know people, how clearly you see them inside and out! How romantic, visionary, and thoughtful you are—you know daily life so well, you see it so splendidly, and you describe it with both a poetic tongue and a realistic flair for detail."

"I admire the beauty and concision of your language. You are so economical and careful not to waste a word! And most important: the precision with which you analyze the human soul, women’s souls, your own soul."

"I’ve always felt in your writing a kind of clinging to life and to the scraps of beauty that are buried here and there."

"I admire your language and your flights of fancy. Some of your metaphors are truly astounding. You are absolutely unique. I would recognize anything of yours blindfolded. In your hand, realism is always transmuted into poetry. Even in translation, your language sings out."

"They played some sad melody that drifted in through the window keeping people awake half the night. Some sadness would then grip the heart so you wouldn't know what it was you wanted."

""So what, a young boychik is better? Playing cards and wasting his time dencing. At least a stable man... So what if he's a little stingy. Vell, a person's got to have some kind of defect." ("Sisters")"

"Gosi, on the other hand, was always a silent type, taciturn, stubborn. And while nobody blamed her, she didn't want to go to parties, always staying quietly at home, obstinately waiting for something. ("Sisters")"

"Annie is an ignorant girl, who can barely sign her name. But even she can feel the music in her head. ("A Cut")"

"One must be stubborn to achieve one's goals, to be nobody's fool. ("A Cut")"

"His laughter is meant to hide the greed that has begun to glint in his eyes. ("A Fur Salesman")"

"the silence stood like an iron wall, unyielding; it lay upon them like a heap of stones. ("The First Patient")"

"Just in the past two days the cherry trees had become a riot of blossoms. ("In the Village")"

"Esther was indeed a friend, but a friend is not as deeply rooted in one's heart as one's misery, as one's grief."

"All this talk agitated Nessi. It seemed to her as though they were taking something holy and defiling it. Her train, her happiness. ("The First Train")"

"People said: Sheyndl is right as the world. And so decent. But she: inside her heart cried. Every time she looked at her shaytele with the bangs in front, her heart would twinge. . .her head was already bound."

"Hungry, she'd run to the cemetery and undam a river of tears."

"I turn to Fradel Schtok and know that another woman writer experienced similar conflicts over mame-loshn. I read her stories of the shtetl and America and see the two worlds between which she was caught...All these Jewish women-Julia, Nadia, Patti, Gina, Fradel, Kadia-are my ancestors. They are mayne bobes, mumes, shvester, my grandmothers, aunts, sisters. Mir darfn zikh bakenen. We need to become acquainted."

"Though she commanded attention by being the first Yiddish poet to use the sonnet form, Fradel's primary energy seemed to have gone into fiction. Her immigration must have had severe consequences on her writing and she obviously experienced language conflicts: Erzeylungen (Stories) appeared in 1919 and then an English novel, For Musicians Only in 1927. Both received poor reviews. Erzeylungen was set in Eastern Europe and in America. Some stories, humorous and satiric, depict Jewish society at critical moments: "Der ershter ban" (The first train) in a small shtetl or "Der ershter patsyent" (The first patient) of a young dentist in America. Other stories are more somber and describe the conflict between inner longings and social (i.e. Jewish) norms. Trapped by social and religious mores, Fradel's characters often cloak their feelings in "appropriate" behavior."

"In modern Yiddish writing, the moral, spiritual, and emotional capital of generations of Jewish women was utilized by male and female writers alike...Female prose writers, such as Fradl Shtok, Esther Kreitman, Rokhl Korn, Kadia Molodowsky, and Khava Rosenfarb, also deepened the awareness and understanding of the feminine contribution to Jewish civilization."

"Old age brings a person troubles. Troubles make a person-make her old and gray before her time. Already little by little and thirty years old."

"When there is hostility towards the family, then not only it is misunderstood, but it is mistreated; so the need to affirm its faith and its content of natural and supernatural reality, becomes a primary and fundamental postulate in the evangelizing mission of the Church."

"The renewed consecration of Spain to the Sacred Heart will not bring forth abundant fruit of life and of witness of Christian love without holy priests.” Spain, the Spain of today, needs many holy priests according to the heart of Christ!"

"The worse the better for all and the worse for all the better, the better for me, in your political benefit."

"From the Prestige come a few little glazes with the appearance of plasticine."

"I want to convey to the Spaniards a message of hope. ETA is a great nation; Spain, sorry, it's a great nation."

"Some aspects of the Spanish economy are going well, [...] but it is not because you govern [...] What has been your main virtue as a ruler? Not ruining the economy, and therefore I applaud. He could have razed everything he found, [...] but no, he had the right to leave the economy as it was before."

"Long live the wine!"

"Tomorrow I have to attend to that pain of the parade."

"You are going to raise VAT on this child who came here! The marshmallows! You are going to raise VAT on the marshmallows!"

"A truly remarkable thing has happened to me, that I have written it here and I do not understand my handwriting."