Meandering in the stacks . . .

Today is the birthday of Leo Calvin Rosten (April 11, 1908 - February 19, 1997), teacher, academic and author. He is well-known for his encyclopedic work The Joys of Yiddish and his stories about the night-school "prodigy" Hyman Kaplan that first appeared in the New Yorker in the 1930s. He is also known by the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross.

"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood." - Leo Rosten

"Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined." - Leo Rosten

"The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others." - Leo Rosten

"Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable." - Leo Rosten

"I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong." - Leo Rosten

"Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense." - Leo Rosten

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