Cynthia Ozick Quotes

Our job is not to set things right but to see them right.

Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.

Recognizing truth requires selflessness. You have to leave yourself out of it so you can find out the way things are in themselves, not the way they look to you or how you feel about them or how you would like them to be.

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

The beginning of all wisdom is recognition of facts

If I want to understand something, I must observe, I must not criticize, I must not condemn, I must not pursue it as pleasure or avoid it as non-pleasure. There must merely be the silent observation of a fact.

A truth that no one knows is still the truth.

You must look at facts, because they look at you.

What's happening is merely what's happening. How you feel about it is another matter.

I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful.

Everyone has been a witness sometime - It doesn't change it if you don't believe.

Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare.

Don't think you are looking at me because you are not.

I think journalists have the right to their opinions but I think their opinions should be based on history and what they see, not what they feel, how long they've been waiting or whether it's raining or it's snowing or whatever.

Reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.

Don't be afraid to see what you see.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

I try to find the picture, not create it.

The challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective.

I'm simply trying to tell the truth about human behaviour as I see it.

We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.

I'm sometimes embarrassed by how clinical I can become when I'm out reporting.

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.