Latest Etgar Keret Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• If you were to do the world championship of victimhood in modern times, then the finals would probably be between Jews and Palestinians. I think the Jews win: we, Isralians, go from the Spanish Inquisition to pogroms to the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion to World War II and the Holocaust - it's a horrible history. And if you look at the Palestinian world, victimized by every entity in the Middle East, they were massacred in every country. I think that, in Israel, the greatest fear that people have, and I have it, too, is this fear of genocide.

  Etgar Keret

  Country, War, Winning

• When my works are being translated, I always get this question from my translators: Up or down? Which means, should it sound biblical and highbrow, or should we take it all down to sound colloquial? In Hebrew, it's both all the time. People in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Mean, Biblical

• What connects me so strongly to Israel is the fact that I'm second generation. My parents said, "We have a place where we can just be ourselves and nobody says, 'Don't tell me your opinion, you damn Jew, go somewhere else.'" Then you go to this country and other Jews tell you to shut up. It's frustrating. I think that we have a bad government and that some people are fearful. They're going with the class bully. But I really truly believe - you read it in my stories - that deep inside, people have goodness.

  Etgar Keret

  Country, Believe, Thinking

• I'm not saying that I don't experience people in life as evil, but writing is not a place of alienation; writing is the place where we can try to be human. I think there are some artists whose works are misanthropic. When I see this kind of stuff, I think, they're smart, but I don't need art to tell me people are assholes. I can just go into the streets.

  Etgar Keret

  Art, Writing, Thinking

• I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.

  Etgar Keret

  Thinking, Parent, Trying

  "What Etgar Keret Learned From His Father About Storytelling And Survival". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 5, 2016.

• People usually don't allow you to cut off their tongue.

  Etgar Keret

  Cutting, People, Tongue

  "What Etgar Keret Learned From His Father About Storytelling And Survival". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 5, 2016.

• The moment that you have a child - that you know that when he'll turn 18, he'll join the Army and go there for three years of compulsory service - then you can't help yourself of thinking about the future - speculating about it, dreading it or even being - trying to be more active to change it and improve it.

  Etgar Keret

  Children, Army, Thinking

  "What Etgar Keret Learned From His Father About Storytelling And Survival". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 5, 2016.

• I think that before my son was born, I didn't have a strong sensation for future. I was living in this kind of never-ending present.

  Etgar Keret

  Strong, Son, Thinking

  "What Etgar Keret Learned From His Father About Storytelling And Survival". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. June 16, 2015.

• Life is one heck of an invention. It is better than the iPhone 4S and Coke Zero combined.

  Etgar Keret

  Zero, Iphone, Coke

  "Suddenly". Interview with Courtney Becks, www.raintaxi.com. 2012.

• Life keeps being a beautiful and frustrating experience.

  Etgar Keret

  Beautiful, Frustrating

  "Suddenly". Interview with Courtney Becks, www.raintaxi.com. 2012.

• I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right. If what comes out of it are stories, then it is my vocation to believe in them and in the fact that they'll interest people and maybe affect their lives.

  Etgar Keret

  Believe, Writing, People

  "Suddenly". Interview with Courtney Becks, www.raintaxi.com. 2012.

• As the son of Holocaust survivors, this is life - you're put in a corner, and you have to get out. I believe that you can always get out.

  Etgar Keret

  Believe, Son, Holocaust

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• Sometimes the stories are smarter than me, and suddenly these things start to make sense.

  Etgar Keret

  Stories, Sometimes, Make Sense

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• I remember a point in [writing] the story where I said, "This isn't working, I should go and buy something at the supermarket or my wife will kill me." Then I said, "No, I'll go on."

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, Wife, Stories

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• I think tone gives birth to the story.

  Etgar Keret

  Thinking, Giving, Stories

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• Often, the stories are very much like trust falls. You fall, and you hope the story's going to catch you.

  Etgar Keret

  Fall, Stories

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.

  Etgar Keret

  Writing, People, Stories

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don't want to get somewhere, you just don't want to fall off your board.

  Etgar Keret

  Fall, Writing, Giving

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• I think that, in Hebrew, it's like the language creates a more unique and specific universe even before the story.

  Etgar Keret

  Unique, Thinking, Stories

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• What happens when you speak colloquial Hebrew is you switch between registers all the time. So in a typical sentence, three words are biblical, one word is Russian, and one word is Yiddish. This kind of connection between very high language and very low language is very natural, people use it all the time.

  Etgar Keret

  Biblical, People, Typical

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• People in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech. When I started writing, I thought [the language] was telling the story of this country: old people in a young nation, very religious, very conservative, very tight-assed, but also very anarchistic, very open-minded. It's all in the language, and that's one thing that doesn't translate.

  Etgar Keret

  Country, Religious, Writing

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• Hebrew is this unique thing that you cannot translate to any other language. It has to do with its history.

  Etgar Keret

  Unique, Hebrew, Language

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• You don't need to use the language of God to ask where the restrooms are.

  Etgar Keret

  Needs, Use, Language

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• When my books were translated, it was always about the characters, because the unique language aspect was lost in translation.

  Etgar Keret

  Book, Character, Unique

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.

• If you scare somebody enough, they stop being rational.

  Etgar Keret

  Scare, Enough, Rational

  "Etgar Keret: We Can Try to Be Human". Interview with Meakin Armstrong, www.guernicamag.com. August 17, 2015.