“ When my mother told my father what had happened, he didn't want to believe it. Nobody ever wants to believe what happens to the Jews, she said, not even us. Nathan Englander
“ I also knew that the deep rumble rolling through us was only nerves, a sensitivity to imagined repercussion, as if a sound were built into revenge. Nathan Englander
“ They went off to the Holy Land and went from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox, which to me sounds like a repackaged detergent–ORTHODOX ULTRA®, now with more deep-healing power. Nathan Englander
“ The Jewish day begins in the calm of evening, when it won't shock the system with its arrival. Nathan Englander
“ Elke zomer worden de oude mensen kleiner terwijl de kinderen groter worden. Volgens Josh is er maar een bepaalde lengte beschikbaar op aarde en verwisselen de centimeters alleen van eigenaar. Nathan Englander
“ Čovjekovo pravo biće pokazuje se u tri slučaja. Kad je posrijedi novac, kad govori u srdžbi i kad je pijan. Nathan Englander
“ How terribly unfair that his whole self aches because of the shape of a shoulder, the soft line of a hip. Nathan Englander
“ You rented an apartment with its own escape route? I did, Z says. It’s not so paranoid when you use it to do just that. Nathan Englander
“ These are hopeful stories from hopeless times. Without them the grief of this nation would tip it into the sea. Nathan Englander
“ No, no, Arnie says. Fondle--fondle is to touch. Everything sounds Yiddish to you. Far-fetched, far-flung... Farflung is Yiddish. No, Arnie says, it's not. Nathan Englander
“ He was surprised, as always, to witness a new degradation, to find another display of wretchedness original enough to bring tears to his eyes. He took a deep breath and ignored the sense of injustice,… Nathan Englander
“ There were new words for everything in their dead language put back to use. New words for the jets and their radar systems. New words for the tanks and the radios inside. But for this, for the hammer… Nathan Englander
“ And we know, until they stop their terrible motion, until they cease swooping and darting and banging into the walls, until they alight, come to rest, exhausted, spent, there is nothing at all we can… Nathan Englander
“ If Z had only known in his perfectly lovely two rooms in Paris what he'd come to know in his single 6x8 block somewhere, he guessed, just outside Tel Aviv. If he'd had an inkling in that breezy French… Nathan Englander
“ It is hard to know what a person would and wouldn't do in any specific instance. And you, spoiled child, apply the rules of civilization to a boy who had only seen its opposite. Maybe the fault for th… Nathan Englander
“ 43. My couch is 92 inches; it’s a deep green three-cushion. It seats hundreds. But that’s not why I got it. I got it because, lying down the long way, in the spooning-in-front-of-a-movie way, in the h… Nathan Englander
