Top 80 Sholom Aleichem Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Money,” says my mother, “can buy everything but a fever.”

— Sholom Aleichem

2. “Matchmaking, for example. What could be finer, better, easier, more respectable? What does it take, after all? Nothing but a bit of common sense and enough brains to see who goes with who.”

— Sholom Aleichem

3. “Well, to quote my mother, a worm lies in horseradish and thinks there’s nothing sweeter.”

— Sholom Aleichem

4. “How does the saying go? “Earning less and sleeping well is earning best.”

— Sholom Aleichem

5. “I hope you and your partners have more luck than we have water in our river.”

— Sholom Aleichem

6. “My brother-in-law – may my life be as long as his was short! – has died of the toothache. Of course, his health wasn’t too good before that.”

— Sholom Aleichem

7. “Nothing begets friendship so readily as trouble.”

— Sholom Aleichem

8. “Not that I’m waiting with bated breath for your presents. I need your diamond brooches and bracelets like last year’s snow.”

— Sholom Aleichem

9. “Who could guess he’d have a tooth pulled by Shmelke the healer and lie down the next morning and die? It’s as my mother says: “Tomorrow is another day – but whose?”

— Sholom Aleichem

10. “It seems there’s no way of making a living in this world that I haven’t tried. The one thing left is matchmaking.”

— Sholom Aleichem

11. “Stay at home,” says my mother, “and you won’t wear out your boots!”

— Sholom Aleichem

12. “You know what, Pan Sholem Aleichem? Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you heard any news of the cholera in Odessa?”

— Sholom Aleichem

13. “My father had a good reputation. Not that anyone ever thought of it when he was alive.”

— Sholom Aleichem

14. “There’s an old saying, you know, that if you scratch a secret, you’ll find a thief.”

— Sholom Aleichem

15. “Nothing lasts forever. And no one is ever satisfied. We’re tired of going from door to door for kvawdehz and nikelz. Better your own slice of bread than the next man’s loaf.”

— Sholom Aleichem

16. “We had a good scare in our town when they broke out, because we were afraid pogroms would come next.”

— Sholom Aleichem

17. “I’ve been drinking goat’s milk and went to see the doctor. Quite a living they make from me, the doctors! They should all drop dead and take the pharmacist with them.”

— Sholom Aleichem

18. “I only wanted to be good – the trouble is that being good gets you nowhere.”

— Sholom Aleichem

19. “As your mother would say, “If you’re knee-deep in mud, keep on crawling.”

— Sholom Aleichem

20. “Your mother would say about them: “If God wills it, even a broomstick can shoot like a gun.”

— Sholom Aleichem

21. “And what’s more fun than a market full of melons? Wherever you look, there’s a honeydew or a watermelon.”

— Sholom Aleichem

22. “Well, a matchmaker, as you know, can talk a wall into marrying a hole in the ground;.”

— Sholom Aleichem

23. “If it’s my fate to have a scribbler for a husband, why must you scribble in Yehupetz? Isn’t there enough ink in Kasrilevke?”

— Sholom Aleichem

24. “We were brought hot, delicious coffee and fresh butter rolls. Have you ever eaten sugared egg cookies? That’s how good those rolls were. Maybe better. And the coffee! I can’t begin to describe it. A taste of Paradise!”

— Sholom Aleichem

25. “Something told me I’d find you at the Odessa Inn! How about some food?” “That’s already taken care of,” I say. “I’ve ordered dinner for eight.” “What does dinner have to do with it?” says Reb Osher. “Just because dinner is dinner, must we starve while we’re waiting for it?”

— Sholom Aleichem

26. “Second, my dear husband, I pronounce you a certified lunatic. You might as well run naked through the streets!”

— Sholom Aleichem

27. “When there’s bread,” says my mother, “don’t hanker after sweets.”

— Sholom Aleichem

28. “When the chicken fat runs out, all that’s left is an empty hole.”

— Sholom Aleichem

29. “Never let a husband off the leash. Not even a carpenter knows where the chips will fly.”

— Sholom Aleichem

30. “Do you know what my grandmother used to say? What a shame it is we have mouths, because if we didn’t we’d never go hungry.”

— Sholom Aleichem

31. “In matchmaking, you should know, telegrams are half the battle.”

— Sholom Aleichem

32. “It’s an old Jewish custom to pick up and go elsewhere at the first mention of a pogrom.”

— Sholom Aleichem

33. “Being compared to a Russian pogromchik didn’t faze that German as much as hearing Brody called Sodom. Did he fly off the handle! The Russians, he said, had the right idea. If you asked him, there should be more pogroms.”

— Sholom Aleichem

34. “Second, may all the bad dreams I dreamed last night, and the night before that, and every night of the year before that, come true for my enemies.”

— Sholom Aleichem

35. “Daughter,” said my mother, “always remember this prayer: Protect me, dear God, from a Berdichev tycoon, an Uman fanatic, a Mohilev skeptic, a Konstantin servant, a Kamenetz politician, and a Yehupetz rogue.”

— Sholom Aleichem

36. “And you sit in Yehupetz without a word! There’s no excuse. If you’re dead, the least you could do is let me know, and if you’re alive, all the more reason to write.”

— Sholom Aleichem

37. “You know what, Mendl? Listen to your wife, tell Odessa where it can go, and come home to Kasrilevke.”

— Sholom Aleichem

38. “The wise man blesses the whip that flogs him,” says my mother.”

— Sholom Aleichem

39. “If I were the Tsar I’d eat nothing but bread and watermelon all year round. I don’t even mind the seeds. Give your melon a shake and they fall right out and you can eat all you want. Boy oh boy!”

— Sholom Aleichem

40. “Meanwhile, I’m having stomach trouble. It shouldn’t happen to you but all that iced cream has done me no good.”

— Sholom Aleichem

41. “My mother says, “It’s not brains or good looks that a person needs, it’s luck.”

— Sholom Aleichem

42. “Pinye said Canada was in Canada. To be exact, it was in America. That is, Canada and America were the same place, with a difference.”

— Sholom Aleichem

43. “You see, I come from Mezritch, though I grew up in Mazapevke, but Vorotolivke is where I’m still registered.”

— Sholom Aleichem

44. “Everyone is going to America and no one has a way of getting there. Some folks have been sent back to Russia. Some have found work in Lemberg. Some have been sent on to Cracow.”

— Sholom Aleichem

45. “We helped ourselves to a drop of vishniak, had some more marmalade, and made small talk. What about? Don’t ask me.”

— Sholom Aleichem

46. “A drunk grows sober before a fool grows wise,” says my mother, more health to her.”

— Sholom Aleichem

47. “Who says you need luck to be lucky?” my mother answered, looking at me. Search me what that means.”

— Sholom Aleichem

48. “A man is only flesh and blood, after all; you can’t fill a stomach with words.”

— Sholom Aleichem

49. “Once the custom was for a bankrupt to leave town, but that’s no longer in vogue. It’s not even called bankruptcy any more. The expression is, “I’m in arrears.” In plain language that means, “Kiss my rear.”

— Sholom Aleichem

50. “There’s never been, she says, a wedding like it. The pastries, the roasts, the tortes, the honey cakes, the strudels, the breads, the jams and the jellies – all for her wedding! Now the wedding is over and Brokheh owns a fur stole and a noodle sieve.”

— Sholom Aleichem