Home > Work > Happy New Year! and Other Stories
101 " I know you’re looking at me and thinking: he’s a woman at heart. For if he weren’t he wouldn’t love children so much. "
― Sholom Aleichem , Happy New Year! and Other Stories
102 " What I am at heart, I don’t know. But I do know that I love children. That’s a fact. "
103 " If so, you’re liable to ask, if there’s no profit in geese, why bother? Here’s my answer—what else do you want me to do after working with geese all these years? "
104 " When I make kosher-for-Passover goose-fat, Passover steps into the house smack in the middle of Hanuka. I make the oven kosher-for-Passover. I send my husband to the synagogue. Let him study there. I chase the kids out of the house. "
105 " Goose-fat hates extra company. "
106 " They say that a pauper has a bottomless stomach. That’s true as the Bible. You ought to take a look at Genesi’s children. May God spare me! But I’m not talking ill of anyone, God forbid. And I can’t stand backbiting either. "
107 " Poor people were dying of cold, they were swelling up with hunger. The children were falling like flies. But it wasn’t so terrible, because only the poor were dying. May God not punish me. "
108 " Like the saying goes: the dead look the way they eat! And you ought to see that woman’s husband "
109 " The first thing he does when he comes home from the study room in the synagogue, is pick up a book. He reads it and sighs quietly. That means he’s hungry. "
110 " Come to think of it—what are we going to do with our old cantor? We just got a new one, you know. We needed him like a hole in the head. "
111 " I just hate their guts. I can’t stand those rich big-shots. Spiders and rich men! May God not punish me. "
112 " My girls. Girls aren’t boys, you know. Boys go to school. But what do girls do? Girls are like a bunch of geese; they sit at home, eat, and wait to grow up. "
113 " It’s nothing to sneeze at—a soup made out of gizzards "
114 " I’m her friend. What have I got against her? But on the other hand, she didn’t do right by me. "
115 " But once—and whenever you hear but once, you know trouble’s coming—something happened. "
116 " He was a follower of a Hasidic rebbe, a trustee in the synagogue, a big-shot with the authorities. In brief, a factotum. "
117 " Like they say: a pimple on a blister, a blister on a boil. "
118 " After all, I’m just a human being made out of flesh and blood, like they say. And, if misfortune is fated, is there any getting around it? "
119 " In a word, do I have to tell you what sort of breed lawyers are? "
120 " For instance, if the biblical Hebrew says: “And he said,” the Aramaic says: “And he saith. "