For me the whole world is like a gigantic theater in which I am the only spectator without opera glasses. The orchestra plays the prelude to the third act, the stage is far away as in a dream, my heart swells with delight – and you want to blind me with a pair of half-ruble spectacles?

— Isaac Babel

Isaac Babel Quotes

No iron can pierce the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time.

— Isaac Babel

No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.

— Isaac Babel

We slept, all six of us, beneath a wooden roof that let in the stars, warming one another, our legs intermingled. I dreamed: and in my dreams saw women. But my heart, stained with bloodshed, grated and brimmed over.

— Isaac Babel

No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.

— Isaac Babel

A phrase is born into the world both good and bad at the same time. The secret lies in a slight, an almost invisible twist. The lever should rest in your hand, getting warm, and you can only turn it once, not twice.

— Isaac Babel

A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.

— Isaac Babel

About Stories

For me the whole world is like a gigantic theater in which I am the only spectator without opera glasses. The orchestra plays the prelude to the third act, the stage is far away as in a dream, my heart swells with delight – and you want to blind me with a pair of half-ruble spectacles?

— Isaac Babel

The orange sky is rolling across the sky like a severed head, gentle light glimmers in the ravines among the clouds, the banners of the sunset are fluttering above our heads. The stench of yesterday’s blood and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill.

— Isaac Babel

If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.

— Isaac Babel

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