Chaim Potok – 7 Quotes

7 Quotes by Chaim Potok

A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare – let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

– Chaim Potok

Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a ‘universal’ without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.

– Chaim Potok

All of us grow up in particular realities – a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we’re brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.

– Chaim Potok

As a species we are always hungry for new knowledge.

– Chaim Potok

I think that to a very great extent we are partners with the divine in this enterprise called history. That is an ongoing relationship, and there is absolutely no guarantee that things will automatically work out to our best advantage.

– Chaim Potok

And these two elements are at odds with one another because Freud is utterly adversary to almost all the ways of structuring the human experience found in Western religions. No Western religion can countenance Freud’s view of man.

– Chaim Potok

But today we become aware of other readings of the human experience very quickly because of the media and the speed with which people travel the planet.

– Chaim Potok