8 Quotes & Sayings By Shalom Auslander

Shalom Auslander has written two novels, "Foreskin's Lament" (2002) and "The Last Days of Shalom Aleichem" (2008). His third novel, "P.S. Your Cat is Dead", was published in early 2012. He has also written two plays, "The Book of Ruth" (2007) and "The Hungry Room" (2009), both plays were performed at various locations in New York City Read more

He is the coauthor of the book "I'm OK – You're Not!: The Ultimate Guide to Embracing Your In-Laws". In addition to his writing career, Shalom runs a small advertising agency as well as a successful marketing consulting business focusing on social media. He lives in New York City with his wife and children.

1
Kugel didn't like attics, he never did. The roofing nails overhead like fangs, waiting to sink into his skull; the cardboard boxes and plastic crates and leather trunks - tombs, sarcophagi - full of ghosts and regret and longing and loss; worse yet was the implication in all this emotional hoarding that the past was preferable to the present, that what came before bests whatever comes next, so clutch it to your chests in mourning and dread as you head into the unknowable but probably lousy future. Shalom Auslander
2
It couldn't be an all-bad world, could it, not with birds who warble and call? Maybe that was the secret - to find the few things that made life just a fraction better, and to focus on those. Bird warbles. Peach fuzz. Puppies barking as if they're full grown dogs. Nothing great, certainly nothing to justify the rest of it, but enough to keep you going. Shalom Auslander
3
… It was the knowing that there had been a happier time, a place of joy and peace and security, that made the sudden absence of it all so agonizing… Not the agony of what was, but the agony of what was no longer; this was the source of all life’s pain--not the fear of a hell to come, but rather the knowledge of an Eden that is no more. Hell isn't the punishment… Eden was. Shalom Auslander
4
Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that until the age of thirteen, all of boy's sins are ascribed to his father. Shalom Auslander
5
So desperate was Kugel for things to turn out for the best, proclaimed Professor Jove, that he couldn't stop worrying about the worst. Hope, said Professor Jove, was Solomon Kugel's greatest failing. Shalom Auslander
6
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope. Shalom Auslander
7
Which is what it all comes down to, I suppose–how you’re selling. Welcome to the twenty-first century, where the only opinion of you that matters is the one that isn’t your own. Rate My Tits. Rate My Ass. Rate My Children. Rate My Essential Being. 1 Star: Awful. This Being left me feeling like I wanted more. Shalom Auslander