Cynthia Ozick Quotes

Human writing reflects that of the universe; it is its translation, but also its metaphor: it says something totally different, and it says the same thing.

If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?

If people aren't creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticize.

We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive.

I wasn't happy with Tagore's own translations in English. Maybe he was, but I wasn't, so I took it upon myself to do it.

I think that's what poets try to do: They try to sidestep neurology and go straight to meaning.

Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer.

I'm not a particularly religious person, but that feeling of getting transmissions from someplace else, even if it's from your own consciousness, is very, very real. To me, at least.

The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say 'thank you.'

Art is kind of the lens through which I think about God.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

There's a relationship between music and spirituality and inspiration and to a certain extent improvisation that draws me in, because I don't totally understand it. I know that those relationships have been telling me, since I started making records, where to go. What to write down.

Even when well translated. can we really understand what other cultures are talking about?

You really have to be in touch with your soul and spirit and your imagination - it keeps you in shape, and it makes you like yourself a bit more.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached.

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.

Whether or not a text really is a universe unto itself, it is safe to say that it can only ever be as rich as its most sensitive interpreter.

Some people believe tarot cards are a form of black magic or senseless new age mysticism but for me they are a practical way of talking directly to the universe.

Definitely being spiritual helps me create good music because music is ultimately the sound of the god.

My music is religion, and my religion is music. They are one.

Of course, literature is the only spiritual and humane career. Even painting tends to dumness, and music turns people erotic, whereas the more you write the nicer you become.

The greatest geniuses have always attributed everything to God, as if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His divinity.

I guess I've always been an aspiring novelist. I went to Princeton and wrote a novel for my thesis.