Quotes by Leonard Michaels

Courage is continuing to perform your daily tasks, and being hopeful despite the odds, not inflicting your fears on others, and remaining sensitive to their needs and expectations, and also not supposing, because youre dying, nothing matters any more.

Stories should be natural as apples, brief as lust, long as a thought.

May 20, 95 - Mississippi calls. She says, All my working life I have done things to help black people. I can drive into the black part of town where no white person would dare to go. I have nothing to fear. They say, Hi there, Mizz Mississippi. I still call them niggers, but only because of the way they act. Id have an affair with Johnnie Cochran in a minute. Once she said to me, I dont see why I should have to feel guilty about the Holocaust. Its not my fault. I hadnt been talking or thinking about the Holocaust, and hadnt told anyone to feel guilty. Her remark came out of nowhere. We were in a diner, about to have a sandwich and suddenly the moment was explosive. Simply being a Jew arouses a peculiar expectation mixed with resentment, even in a highly intelligent woman. Amazing to me is that she doesnt do much but watch television, drink beer, and smoke Marlboros, and yet seethes with dark thoughts and tumultuous feeling.

Never to have to think of yourself as white is a luxory that makes you deeply stupid.

Feb. 1, 1965Storm late at night, heavy rain, a thunderous racket, the windows shaking. I heard my name called. A woman’s voice in hell pleading with me to join her.

Reasons are whores.