"Bad, bad always and everywhere. This black thread is spinning: She is behind me, in front of me and next to me, She in every breath She in every smile She in tears, in prayer and in hymns..."

"It's the end, what a gas, And who's read it is an ass!"

"Gdzie widziałaś uczciwą kobietę z rudymi włosami?"

"Każdy samobójca musi być szalony i stracić poczucie moralności i wiary w obecność Boga."

"Ja tam nie mam czasu myśleć."

"Oj, czasy! czasy nastały. Ani paszy dla bydła, ani uczciwości ludzkiej."

"Bo zgodziłam się z życiem i kradnę to, co jest najmilszego. To jest szczyt mądrości."

"Moje sumienie jest czyste i nie boję się dnia białego."

"A niech was wszyscy diabli!!!"

"A przestań się malować, bo wyglądasz jak kamienica odnowiona na przyjazd cesarza."

"Każda kobieta to fortepian – tylko trzeba umieć grać."

"Jeden Judasz drugiego za pieniądze sprzedaje."

"Śmierć na wszystko pomoże."

"Na to mamy cztery ściany i sufit, aby brudy swoje prać w domu i aby nikt o nich nie wiedział."

"W porządnej kamienicy wypadki się nie trafiają."

"Dla kobiety nie ma, jak dom."

": Niby to u nas nie ma kokot w kamienicy. Sama mamcia wynajmowała tej z pierwszego piętra. (z godnością): Ale się jej nie kłaniam. : Ale pieniążki za czynsz mamcia bierze od niej, że aż ha... : Przepraszam, ja takich pieniędzy dla siebie nie biorę. : A co mamcia z nimi robi? (majestatycznie): Podatki nimi płacę."

"Kobieta powinna przejść przez życie cicho i spokojnie."

"Skromność – skarb dziewczęcia."

"Dla męża, mój panie, kobieta się nie potrzebuje pod spodem stroić."

"Wielka afera – zagoi się do wesela."

"Alas! thou sufferest, too, although thy pangs Bring naught to birth, nothing create, nor serve!"

"Not that I rise against thee, Poetry, Mother of Beauty, of ideal Life! But I must pity him condemned to dwell Within the limits of these whirling worlds In dying agonies, or yet to be, Doomed to sad memories, or prophecies, Perchance remorse, or vague resentiments,— Who gives himself to thee! for everywhere Thou ruinest wholly those who consecrate Themselves, with all they are, to thee alone, Who solely live the voices of thy glory!"

"Painting the sensual with thy hues divine,— Thou turn'st away thy face, while scattering Perchance upon his brow some fading flowers, Of which he strives to twine a funeral crown, Spending his life to weave a wreath of death!"

"Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie; Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił..."

"In spring's own country, where the gardens blow, You faded, tender rose! For hours now past, Like butterflies departing, on you're cast The worms of memories to work you woe."

"Sound as a burrow'd marmot he slept On the straw where he'd tumbled fully-dressed that night."

"Będę o to Pana Boga pytać, On to wszystko zapisał, wszystko mnie opowie."

"Tyran wstał — Herod! — Panie, cała Polska młoda Wydana w ręce Heroda. Co widzę — długie, białe, dróg krzyżowych biegi, Drogi długie — nie dojrzeć — przez puszcze, przez śniegi Wszystkie na północ! tam, tam w kraj daleki, Płyną jak rzeki."

"Monsters merge and welter through the water's mounting Din. All hands, stand fast! A sailor sprints aloft, Hangs, swelling spider-like, among invisible nets, Surveys his slowly undulating snares, and waits."

"Basically, this modern Yiddish literature detected and depicted a paradox that casts a sharp light on the situation of Yiddishkeit at the start of the new century: it was a literature of rupture that the rabbis rejected as impious, a literature turned towards the realities of life, towards the world of the underdog, but if it testifies in this way to the earthquakes that were shaking Yiddishland, it did not take flight beyond the linguistic and cultural frontiers of this world and set foot in universal culture. Though very many Jews in Poland were moved by reading Adam Mickiewicz, how many Polish intellectuals between the two wars were aware of Peretz? This literature remained entirely focused on the Yiddish world, its fund of religious mythology, its customs and traditions, a literature that prospered at the heart of the crisis this world was undergoing, for the exclusive use of those who were its direct witnesses or its agents. Curiously, it is only posthumously, one could say, decades after the disappearance in fire and blood of the world from which it arose, that this literature has begun to enter the pantheon of human culture in general, and, paradox of paradoxes, the broad non-Yiddish-speaking public has begun to discover Sholem Aleichem and Shalom Asch by way of Isaac Bashevis Singer."

"Ty Boże, ty naturo! dajcie posłuchanie. Godna to was muzyka i godne śpiewanie. Ja mistrz! Ja mistrz wyciągam dłonie! Wyciągam aż w niebiosa i kładę me dłonie Na gwiazdach jak na szklannych harmoniki kręgach."

"Kiedy spojrzę w kometę z całą mocą duszy, Dopóki na nią patrzę, z miejsca się nie ruszy."

"Ja i ojczyzna to jedno. Nazywam się Miljion — bo za milijony Kocham i cierpię katusze."

"His poems, even in English, seem to me finer than anything currently being written by any English or American poet."

"Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project and a decree on prostitutes and beggar I must also elaborate a better system of prisons since as you justly said Denmark is a prison I go to my affairs This night is born a star named Hamlet We shall never meet what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince."

"Now that we're alone we can talk prince man to man though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant."

"The liver is not a gentleman."

"And do not forgive indeed it is beyond your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn"

"Go where the others have gone, to the tenebrous limit for the golden fleece of void, your ultimate prize go upright among those who are on their knees among those turning their backs on and those fallen to dust."

"You survived not to live on your time is short, you have to give a proof of truth"

"And now I won't be on any of them group photo (proud proof of my death in all literary weekly magazines in the world) when someone will say, look, you see - it's Zbyszek - pointing finger at a man struggling with a suitcase - but that's not it I'm someone else who isn't even from this industry there is no me and there is complete emptiness"

"And if the City falls and one survives he shall carry the City within on the roads of exile he shall be the City"

"Jeśli tematem sztuki będzie dzbanek rozbity mała rozbita dusza z wielkim żalem nad sobą to co po nas zostanie będzie jak płacz kochanków w małym brudnym hotelu kiedy świtają tapety"

"Go for it is the only way to be accepted to the circle of cold skulls the circle of your forefathers: Gilgamesh Hector Roland defenders of the kingdom of no frontiers and of the city of ashes Be faithful Go"

"I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience."

"Like so many other male writers, Singer sees the world as essentially male-centered and clearly views women as "other"-separate, subsidiary, apart, alien. He betrays a deep mistrust, revulsion and hostility toward women, especially those who stray in any way from their prescribed roles or cease to organize their lives around men. Singer portrays women almost entirely as the sum total of their biological functions and in terms of their relationships (or lack of them) with men. He uses physical details of women's bodies as signposts of their personalities."

"The most persistent of Singer's stereotypes, one that almost subsumes all the others, is woman as temptress."