Top 80 Sholom Aleichem Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “My father had a good reputation. Not that anyone ever thought of it when he was alive.”

— Sholom Aleichem

52. “To make a long story short, he went round and round – it helped like cupping helps a corpse.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

54. “But it’s as my mother says: “If you want to learn how to grow cabbages, ask the gardener, not the goat.”

— Sholom Aleichem

55. “His funeral procession, said to have been the largest in New York City’s history, included more than one hundred thousand participants. Most were devoted readers.”

— Sholom Aleichem

56. “And you have three children, bless them. “Remember your own and you’ll forget the next man’s,” my mother says.”

— Sholom Aleichem

57. “Where were they coming from? From Zhmerinka, and from Kazatin, and from Razdyelne, and from Popelne, and from a few-other places that were equally famous for their roughnecks.”

— Sholom Aleichem

58. “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

59. “Better to wish yourself well than another ill,” as my mother says.”

— Sholom Aleichem

60. “I shook so hard from fear that the couch moved from the wall.”

— Sholom Aleichem

61. “But a lot you care when all you can think of is your fine Yehupetz ladies. They should gash themselves on their diamonds and bleed to death!”

— Sholom Aleichem

62. “How does it say in the Talmud: Who giveth life giveth also the fruit of the vine. Rashi interprets it as: God may be God, but brandy is brandy. L’chayim!”

— Sholom Aleichem

63. “My mother, bless her, had your number when she said, “Don’t hold your breath waiting for him, because nothing good comes from a graveyard.”

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

65. “When the cow goes to pasture,” says my mother, “it forgets to say good-bye.”

— Sholom Aleichem

66. “There’s a limit to everything; even chicken soup with kreplach can get to be too much.”

— Sholom Aleichem

67. “The worse heartache,” says my mother, “is the one you can’t bare.”

— Sholom Aleichem

68. “My mother says dumplings in a dream are a dream and not dumplings.”

— Sholom Aleichem

69. “It’s no picnic, your Russian grammar; you have to mind your p’s and q’s.”

— Sholom Aleichem

70. “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

71. “It makes my heart ache to see people living such fine lives when I have to sit here like a widow in black, waiting to hear from my fine breadwinner.”

— Sholom Aleichem

72. “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

73. “Just be careful, Mendl, that you don’t turn into such a great success that I have to send you your carfare again.”

— Sholom Aleichem

74. “Send us the cure – the affliction we already have.”

— Sholom Aleichem

75. “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

76. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

79. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

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

— Sholom Aleichem

82. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem

84. “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

85. “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

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

— Sholom Aleichem