Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" No traveller ever sets out with so little idea of where he is going or how he is going to get there than an artist does. And no traveller ever gets to a more wonderful place. "
Howard Jacobson
Going
Artist
Wonderful
Related Quotes:
" Looking back, I realise it wasn't only gym I dreaded at school. Every class was a torment. It wasn't knowledge I objected to but instruction. Why couldn't they just tell us what books to read and leave us to get on and read them? "
Howard Jacobson
Looking Back
Looking
Knowledge
" You won't get a rational assessment of a political party from a member, and you won't get a reasoned account of the joys of being 'linked' from somebody who's already 'in.' "
Howard Jacobson
Political Party
You
Party
" One of my agents once said I was one of the most dangerous men in London, and I was so excited by that. For a few days, I walked around Soho snarling. "
Howard Jacobson
London
Men
Dangerous
" If we declare ourselves, as readers, to be on the side of life, the question has to be asked what sort of life we are on the side of. "
Howard Jacobson
Life
Question
Side
" The 'Reader's Digest' used to run a feature called 'It Pays to Increase Your Word Power.' The new wisdom - post-Trump and Brexit - is that it doesn't. "
Howard Jacobson
Wisdom
New
Power
" You know you are grown sentimental when you start counting the cygnets on the duck pond in the park to be sure none has perished since you counted last. "
Howard Jacobson
Duck
Park
Start
" The novel is a thing of irony and ambiguity. That's at the heart of 'J', a world that has stopped arguing with itself. We have to keep our equilibrium of hate, which is argument. But on the Internet, you find a unanimity of response, and in 'J,' there's a fear of that, that discourse becomes a statement of political or ideological belief. "
Howard Jacobson
Heart
Fear
Hate
" Once in a while, we need the hard Left to pipe up. "
Howard Jacobson
Up
Hard
Left
" For me a Writing Day was an occasion for self-reproach and panic, a time to lament the passing of the years, stare out of windows and remember that even those famous late starters Joseph Conrad and George Eliot had started by the age I was now. "
Howard Jacobson
Writing
Me
Famous
" If we doubt the power of literature and art to civilise, how come no one has ever been mugged by a person carrying a well-thumbed copy of 'Middlemarch' in his back pocket? "
Howard Jacobson
Power
Literature
Doubt
" 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
" There was no question of ever sending us to Jewish schools... They wanted us out there. They wanted us to be lawyers and doctors. They wanted us out of the religious thing, apart from that ethnic bonding. "
Howard Jacobson
Lawyers
Us
Question
" There's no law that says you have to be consistent in your preferences. "
Howard Jacobson
Says
You
No Law
" Our connection to the great myths of our natures is murky. A mother might see the Medea in herself without imagining she will ever do away with her children. "
Howard Jacobson
Mother
Children
She
" I normally take a long time finding titles. I finish the book and go into sweats for months afterwards trying to think of them. "
Howard Jacobson
Think
Time
Trying
" 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
" Of my old tendency to overdo the dedication and deface the title page with florid compliments and obscure quotes which the recipient cannot read, I will say only that I learnt my lesson when I had to shell out with my own money for a hardback I'd vandalised and now limit myself to 'Good wishes.' "
Howard Jacobson
Good
Myself
Money
" I never believe any politician talking about popular culture. "
Howard Jacobson
Culture
About
Talking
" Think of the aged and bed-ridden Matisse cutting out strips of coloured paper, much as a child might, and investing them with a more than mortal vitality... Those strips of paper resonate because they prove that our materials don't determine in advance the worth of what we make. "
Howard Jacobson
Think
Prove
Child
" When I first went to Israel, I saw soldiers pushing Palestinians around and thought, 'I can't stand this'. Then I'd meet somebody in a bar saying what wonderful people the Palestinians are and what mamzers the Jews are, and I'd think, 'Hang on'. It should be hard to make up your mind on any serious subject. "
Howard Jacobson
Mind
Thought
Think
" Even the wordiest of men know there's a time to button it. "
Howard Jacobson
Know
Time
Men
" Let's be honest with one another: almost everything is too long except life, and I know people who wouldn't even concur with that exception. "
Howard Jacobson
Life
Almost
Honest
" Many a trivial novel has been written about an important subject, and many a profound one about nothing in particular. "
Howard Jacobson
Been
Nothing
Many
" The more educated we are, the less we are prepared to tolerate views contrary to our own. "
Howard Jacobson
Prepared
Educated
More
" If something or someone is being banned, I want to be among the first to know about it. "
Howard Jacobson
Know
First
Want
" A system of thought that accepts no inconsistencies is a frightful thing. "
Howard Jacobson
Accepts
Thought
Thing
" Show me a novel that's not comic, and I'll show you a novel that's not doing its job. "
Howard Jacobson
Show
Doing
Job
" To a philosopher like Nietzsche, the Jew is culpable not for rejecting Christianity but for inventing it. "
Howard Jacobson
Philosopher
Jew
Like
" There's a lot to be said for misanthropy. "
Howard Jacobson
Lot
Said
" To any young person starting out on life and looking to make a quick fortune, I have this advice: forget banking, but go instead into security, scaffolding, or urban trench digging. Not in a hands-on way. I mean start a company. "
Howard Jacobson
Start
Security
Life