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" It is a nonsense to me when people come along and tell me not to be pessimistic; or that culture has always been going to the bad. Well, yes, it has, and it is an author's job to point it out. "
Howard Jacobson
People
Bad
Always
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" Literature is a house with many mansions. "
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" I've been married three times. I married the girl next door when I was 22, and I wasn't a good husband, but I wasn't a good anything then. Nowadays, I'm much kinder. "
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" The Christian Armenian story was the Polish Jewish story. The efforts of the Armenians to stay alive in Musa Dagh chimed with those struggling to survive the ghetto. "
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Christian
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Story
" Many a trivial novel has been written about an important subject, and many a profound one about nothing in particular. "
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Many
" Nothing is more interesting in a novel or a play than an affair. "
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Interesting
Affair
Play
" Most people to whom a statue has been erected are undeserving. "
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Most
Been
Whom
" I wouldn't dream of watching motor racing, cycling, or golf - which aren't truly sports anyway. "
Howard Jacobson
Sports
Watching
Dream
" The more educated we are, the less we are prepared to tolerate views contrary to our own. "
Howard Jacobson
Prepared
Educated
More
" It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture. "
Howard Jacobson
Violence
Creative
Culture
" Show me a novel that's not comic, and I'll show you a novel that's not doing its job. "
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Show
Doing
Job
" A writer should never allow himself to be lulled out of the vigilance native to his profession. "
Howard Jacobson
Vigilance
Never
Out
" Economics is not a science; it is a quasi-religion: part superstition, part mystique, part sentimentality. Bankers dream like other men, the only difference being that when their dreams turn to nightmares, we all lose sleep. There can be no trusting the muttering of any prelate when it comes to money. "
Howard Jacobson
Men
Sleep
Science
" The young come in many guises: vigorous and passionate, vindictive and mean-spirited. And not every person over 65 is dozing in a retirement home. "
Howard Jacobson
Young
Retirement
Passionate
" I like a singalong. And I'm a bit of a sentimentalist for the past myself. "
Howard Jacobson
Bit
Myself
Like
" Even the wordiest of men know there's a time to button it. "
Howard Jacobson
Know
Time
Men
" Whoever has once been truly unsettled by a work of the imagination will never give loyalty to a single idea, belief system, religious faith or party. "
Howard Jacobson
Party
Work
Imagination
" There is much that makes one pause in 'If This is a Man', the record of Levi's 11-month incarceration in Auschwitz, much one cannot read without needing to lay aside the book and inhale the breath of common air. "
Howard Jacobson
Man
Incarceration
Air
" I was brought up a Jew but, you know, that way of being Jewish - the New York way. We were stomach Jews; we were Jewish-joke Jews. We were bagel Jews. We didn't go to synagogue. I'm frightened of synagogue to this day. "
Howard Jacobson
Day
New
New York
" I am enthralled until the last ball Djokovic hits, and the moment it is over and he is on his knees eating grass, I sink into my chair, cannot believe I have spent another fleeting fortnight of the few summers I have left caring about the outcome of contests I will have forgotten in the blink of an eye, and begin to question my sanity. "
Howard Jacobson
Believe
I Am
Moment
" 'Great Expectations', in short, is a more damning account of the mess Dickens himself had made of love than any denunciation on behalf of the outraged wives club could ever be. "
Howard Jacobson
Short
Club
Great
" Sometimes, a writer's life alone can tell a story. "
Howard Jacobson
Alone
Life
Tell
" When I see ultra-Orthodox Jews stamping all over Jaffa, or when I see them deciding who is a Jew, I think: 'What's happened to the grand dream of Zionism?' I don't like to see ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel. What's wrong with Manchester? "
Howard Jacobson
See
Over
Wrong
" When people speak to me of the torment of writing, I can think only of what it was like before I wrote: once writing meant writing and not thinking about writing, I knew nothing of any torment. "
Howard Jacobson
People
Writing
Me
" In my experience, every book you write changes the conditions in which you write the next. "
Howard Jacobson
Experience
Changes
Book
" When demagogues and dictators ban art, this is the reason: art is the great solvent of obedient fundamentalism. "
Howard Jacobson
Reason
Art
Dictators
" I've always said if a woman is looking for a good husband, she should go for a Jewish man past 60. Jewish men are essentially brought up to love women. Then you rebel against that and become a bit of a bastard. Then at 60, you revert. "
Howard Jacobson
Good
Man
Men
" Many a woman has suffered at the hands of a Paul Morel. There's more than one way of being brutal. "
Howard Jacobson
Being
More
Hands
" There's no law that says you have to be consistent in your preferences. "
Howard Jacobson
Says
You
No Law
" This is now the way our culture prioritises. Look up 'Steppenwolf,' and you'll get the band before the novel. Look up Jesus Christ, and you'll get the musical. Look up Princess Link-a-din and you'll get LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network. "
Howard Jacobson
Princess
You
Band
" It would be nice if we could all agree to this proposition: popularity is not the same as achievement. "
Howard Jacobson
Achievement
Agree
Nice