Meir Shalev > Quotes

“you don’t need big reasons to love a woman. And the size of the love has nothing to do with the size of the reason. Sometimes one word she says is enough. Sometimes only the line of the hip, like a poppy stem. And sometimes it’s how her lips look when she says ‘seven’ or ‘thirteen.’ Look and see, with ‘seven’ the lips are starting out like with a kiss. Then you see the teeth are touching the lips a moment to make the ‘v.’ And then the mouth is opening a little … like this … se-ven. See? And with ‘thirteen,’ the tip of the tongue is peeping out for the ‘th.’ Then the mouth is opening and the tongue is touching the top of the mouth at the end.”
― Meir Shalev

“The note in the quill was intended for the girl, and it read, 'Yes and yes and yes.' Yes I love you, yes I miss you, and yes I know and remember that you do, too. For in her last missive she had written 'No and no.' That is to say, No I do not want anyone other than you, and no I do not manage to sleep at night.”
― Meir Shalev

“החיים שלי לא רעים. יש לי עבודה שאני אוהבת, אני עושה אותה כמו שצריך, ויש לי מלחינים שכותבים לי שירים, כדי שאוכל לשיר להם קול שני, וסופרים שכותבים לי ספרים, שאקרא ואערוך אותם כמו שצריך. ואני גם יודעת ואוהבת להיות לבד, ובעיקר - אני יודעת להעסיק את עצמי.”
― Meir Shalev, שתיים דובים

“That’s true freedom for a person. Not money, but time.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“A woman has to look good, but a man—a little bit nicer looking than a monkey is enough.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“Mine is the tongue tied silence of awkwardness, hers the smiling silence of anticipation, and then we utter inanities to each other, like "beautiful weather arranged for us" and "I like these kind of clouds.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“What does a person need?' she proclaimed one day after the first spoonful of dessert. 'Not much: something sweet to eat, and a story to tell, and time and space, and gladioluses in a vase, and two friends, and two hilltops, one on which to stand and the other upon which to gaze. And two eyes for watching the heavens and waiting....”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“За споделяне на удоволствията не трябва много ум. След година съвместен живот всяка жена знае как мъжът ѝ получава удоволствие, но не знае как скърби.”
― Meir Shalev, Esau

“Two types of sweets were served with the tea: one was varenya, a chunky jam chock-full of whole pieces of fruit, usually grapes. (Who had money for strawberries? my aunt Batsheva pointed out when she read a draft of this book.) The other was “herring tails,” as my grandfather called herring, which was to him—and now to me—better than any sweet the world over. Grandpa Aharon called it selyodka and told the following story about it: In the shop that his family had “back there” in Makarov, in Ukraine, “we sold products for the body, products for the soul, and products for between the two.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he explained. “Products for the body were axes and hoes and boots for the Ukrainian farmers. Products for the soul were tallises, tefillin, and prayer books for the Jews.” Then he fell silent and stared at me in order to get me to ask what the products in between the two were. “Grandpa,” I said, “and what were the products in between the two?” “In between the two,” he chuckled, “is selyodka, herring. It’s for both the body and the soul.”
― Meir Shalev, My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir

“Alongside the house he planted orange and grapefruit, two more pomegranate trees, and one unbelievable tree that yielded oranges, lemons, tangerines, and other citrus fruits that I do not recall-- perhaps grapefruit and, perhaps, according to the storyline nature of my family, avocado or tomato. Either way, that tree aroused awe and excitement within me, and this is only increased when I asked my mother how her father had managed to create it. 'He's a magician,' she said. Years later I discovered it was a perfectly ordinary grafting of bitter orange understock, but my mother's words were already engraved upon me, and the impression had never dissipated.”
― Meir Shalev, My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden

“Ръка, която лесно можеш да си представиш как стиска приклада на пушката, гали внучето по главата, удря по масата и умело обгръща женски талии и хълбоци.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“Tizrah split each fig and gave one half to me while she bit into the other half. She explained that every fig tastes different from the next, even if they grew on the same tree. "Meshulam told me it isn't nice if someone gets a good fig and someone else gets a rotten one, so you have to split every fig between the people eating them.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“Хората не знаят колко тежка работа е месенето. Тестото е жилаво и присмехулно като момиче, тежко и неподатливо като олово. Яков го месеше с движенията и на други древни професии – на укротителя, грънчаря, масажиста. Той хвърляше парче тесто върху масата, прегъваше ъглите му навътре, биеше, мачкаше, разтягаше и разточваше, а лицето му се кривеше от усилието. Пот и капки от носа му („непролетите сълзи, пламъкът на кръвта, лелеяният блян на семето му“) се смесваха с тестото.”
― Meir Shalev, Esau

“In such situations it is a good idea to divide hope into small bits of reality, not to expect a huge miracle at the end of the road but to wish for the grace of the few feet just ahead.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“this way you’re inside time. If they bought you a watch, you’d only be next to it.”
― Meir Shalev, The Loves of Judith

“«Прокладывая первые борозды, выжигая сорняки, осушая болота и вырубая леса, мы одновременно сеяли семена своего поражения. В конечном счете мы осушили болота, но под ними обнаружилось нечто более страшное. «Связь с землей», «слияние с природой» — что это, как не возвращение вспять, закат и озверение? Мы вырастили новое поколение. Это уже не те, неукорененные и несчастные евреи галута, это крестьяне, прочно привязанные к земле, — грубые, сварливые, склочные, ограниченные, узколобые люди с широкой костью и толстой кожей»”
― Meir Shalev, The Blue Mountain

“My mother left home in the manner that characterized everything she did: with a decision that swelled and ripened slowly and once made could be rescinded by no one. She would sit at the kitchen table with a large sheet of paper that she would divide into two columns. At the top of one she would write FOR and at the top of the other AGAINST...She made her lists, counted on her fingers, and made her decision only after tabulating and weighing.”
― Meir Shalev, A Pigeon and a Boy

“Sometimes the soul is the doctor of the body and sometimes the body is the doctor of the soul.”
― Meir Shalev, The Loves of Judith

“Ако всеки младеж можеше да има за приятели библиотекар, учител по природознание и висока снизходителна девойка, светът щеше да изглежда съвсем различен…”
― Meir Shalev, Esau

“The rabbis of the Talmud opined that Saul failed as a leader because there were no scandals in his past, that he lacked skeletons in his closet to keep him wary. By that measure, our leaders of today are brilliantly qualified, but it seems to me that Saul’s failure came from elsewhere. He failed because Samuel and David wounded him fatally, not only by their actions but by their presence, by their very nature and his.”
― Meir Shalev, Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts

“But a child who learns things like this at the age of four will be a better person when he or she reaches the age of six, and you cannot underestimate a chance like that.”
― Meir Shalev, My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden

“Kinderen hebben vergrotende ogen. Dat heb ik ooit gehoord van Bialik. Die was hier eens in het dorp voor een lezing en hij zei het zo: "De Zwitserse Alpen zijn echt hoge bergen, maar niet zo hoog als de mesthoop op het erf van mijn grootvader in het dorp toen ik vijf jaar oud was.”
― Meir Shalev, Four Meals

“If only we could get rid of every dead thing inside our own bodies and souls!”
― Meir Shalev, My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden

“האדמה הגסה הזאת, שהורגלה בצחנת עצמות של קדושים ובמדרך רגליהם של צליינים וגייסות, פערה פיה בצחוק למראה החלוצים שנשקו אותה ושפכו עליה את מנחת דמעתם, שבעלו אותה בהתרגשות, נועצים את מעדריהם הזעירים בגופה העצום. שקראו לה אמא, אחות ואשה. יחד עם התלמים הראשונים והזרעים הראשונים, יחד עם ביעור העשב השוטה, יבוש הביצה ובירוא היער, זרענו גם את הכישלון". וכאן נעשה קולו חגיגי והוא הוסיף: "בסופו של דבר יבשנו את הביצות, אבל מתחת להן גילינו בוץ גרוע הרבה יותר. הקשר אל האדמה, ההתמזגות עם הטבע – מה הם אם לא התבהמות ושקיעה. הקמנו דור חדש, לא עוד יהודים תלושים ועלובים, אלא דור של אכרים, הקשורים לאדמתם. מגושמים, אנשי ריב מדון, צרי דעת, עבי עור וגרם.”
― Meir Shalev, The Blue Mountain

“In spite of this, he will reach his heart's desire with wondrous precision.”
― Meir Shalev, My Wild Garden: Notes from a Writer's Eden

“The rain came down, and there was a flood, and everything was washed out. God took time off from his other activities and for a few hours did not kill or bring to life, did not make marriages or break them, did not uplift or bring low, did not bring forth cows from the Nile or she-bears from the woods, did not visit the iniquity of fathers upon children or the iniquity of children upon fathers. No. He only returned to the scene of the crime and destroyed all the evidence.”
― Meir Shalev, Two She-Bears