Top 80 Sholom Aleichem Quotes (2024 Update)

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

5. “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

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. “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

8. “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

9. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

11. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

13. “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

14. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

17. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

22. “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

23. “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

24. “You say you’re going like a house afire, Mendl? Why don’t you jump into the flames! I wouldn’t come see you in Boiberik if you were on your deathbed!”

— Sholom Aleichem

25. “In short, I began getting offers from all over the world: from Kamenets, and from Yelisavet, and from Gomel, and from Lubin, and all the way from Mogilev, and from Berdichev, and Kaminka, and even Brody.”

— Sholom Aleichem

26. “But after the last straw, there’s always more, as my mother says.”

— Sholom Aleichem

27. “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

28. “Not everyone would do for a husband what I’ve done. All that fancy living has gone to his lordship’s head.”

— Sholom Aleichem

29. “The sky is the limit. Not even Kahnegi, Vendehbilt, or Rahknfelleh knew how far they would go.”

— Sholom Aleichem

30. “In short, he kept waiving me such waivers that I waved goodbye to him and went to see a third lawyer, that’s where I went.”

— Sholom Aleichem

31. “Why not teach him a trade?” Pinye says. “Americans work with their hands.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

33. “All you men are the same – you’re not fit to fasten your wives’ apron strings.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

35. “Don’t you know that you can skin the bear in the forest, but you can’t sell its hide there?”

— Sholom Aleichem

36. “Second, I wish all my enemies would burst from the bellyful your last letter gave me.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

39. “Then she gave him a few good smacks in the face. These he accepted like a philosopher.”

— Sholom Aleichem

40. “Once, matches were made behind a child’s back; you came home from shaking hands with your in-laws, you wished the bride or groom a mazel tov, and that was that.”

— Sholom Aleichem

41. “I don’t know how it is with other writers, but I’ve been treated like the lowest of the low.”

— Sholom Aleichem

42. “They’re a lovely couple – she doesn’t mind his not being too bright and he doesn’t mind her not looking so good. But beauty makes nothing good, my mother says. It’s goodness that makes everything beautiful.”

— Sholom Aleichem

43. “My mother spoke about being a widow with two sons, one swimming in chicken fat and the other the poor little fellow sitting next to her.”

— Sholom Aleichem

44. “As my mother says, “God is a father. He punishes with one hand and heals with the other.” That’s something I don’t get. Why punish and then heal? You could save yourself the trouble by skipping both.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

46. “I don’t care what I’ll be in America. I just want to get there. I’m dying to see the place. I’ve made up my mind to learn three things there: swimming, writing, and cigar smoking. I mean I can do all three already. But I’ll do them better in America.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

48. “Who was he talking to? Me? No one ever said “please” to me. I looked around. There was no one else in the room. Old Luria growled again in a deep voice: “Please come and have a look at the Rambam.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem