The Book of Job Quotes

“Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“In other words, Job is saying to God: If I am important enough for You to keep track of my every mistake and punish me for them, then am I not worth five minutes of Your time to tell me what I am being punished for? And if I am too insignificant to merit Your personal attention, then why am I important enough for You to measure out my punishment?”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“The Coen brothers, who in 2009 made the movie A Serious Man, a retelling of the story of Job in modern dress,”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“A good book tells a story, and the reader is either pleased or displeased, intrigued or bored. A great book invites the reader to respond, to argue, to challenge.”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“The author of the Twenty-third Psalm makes a similar point. When all is going smoothly in his life, surrounded by green pastures and still waters, the psalmist talks about God, referring to God as He. But when he finds himself for the first time in the valley of the shadow of death and discovers that God has not abandoned him, only then does he say for the first time, “for Thou art with me.”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“Any God worth worshipping should prefer honest anger to hypocritical praise.”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“Until I die, I will maintain my integrity. (27:2–5) This”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“Do you not know this, that from time immemorial, Since man was first set on earth, The joy of the wicked has been brief?… Though evil is sweet to his taste, His food in his bowels turns to venom within him. (20:4–5, 12–14) In”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“It is to this dimension of God, a God who cannot tolerate the reduction of a human being, fashioned in His image, to less than human status, that Job may be appealing. Job, in his extremity, is calling on God, saying, “I have no one left. I am without family. My friends have deserted me. You who are the Father of all humanity, is it not Your obligation to atone for my children’s deaths as their go’el and to extract me from my current situation as my go’el?” Zophar”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“My friends have forgotten me, My dependents and maidservants respond to me as a stranger. Summon my servant but he does not respond … My odor is repulsive to my wife, I am loathsome to my children. (19:15–17) He”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“[1] Of all the books we have read this semester, which one did you enjoy least? [2] To what limitation in yourself do you attribute this inability to appreciate an acknowledged classic?)”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person

“Let me suggest that at the core of Jewish God-talk is the unshakable conviction that God’s most dominant attribute is His commitment to justice rather than power. Earthly kings lust for power, for total control, and are prepared to sacrifice justice, to hurt innocent people, to hold on to power. But as far as the God of Israel is concerned, in a conflict between justice and power, justice will prevail. God will not do wrong. That more than anything gives Job reason to hope. A”
― Harold S. Kushner, The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person