Autocorrect Quotes

“Three a.m. is prime time for the soul. Programming should start any minute, and it's hard to tell what'll be on this time, so is it any wonder you're breaking into a sweat? Sometimes they broadcast anxiety, on weekends it's depression, and then there's the big hit--that feeling that makes your whole body tremble and your throat close up. It's not happiness. If it were happiness, you would know. You've read enough about happiness to know that it shouldn't be anywhere near this painful.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“Deep in his heart, Yechiel-Nachman had made peace with his prayers going unanswered. Because prayer was the pure yearning for compassion and justice, whereas life was life: cruel, dispiriting, insulting. It was therefore only natural that two such contrasting worlds could never converge.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“There are moments in history when a technological invention bursts into the world and all of humanity watches with a mixture of appreciation and fear: appreciation of its huge potential, and fear of the equally huge danger that lurks within it. Atomic energy, artificial intelligence, and human cloning are just a few examples of promising inventions that can give humanity so much--but can also take everything away.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“And if you've somehow managed to survive this far, now is the time to step things up and try to start caring: about a cat wailing in the yard, a baby wailing on the neighbor's balcony, a homeless guy wailing on the sidewalk across the street. I know, it's not easy. Surviving is intuitive: a bear chases you, you run. But caring? That's for advanced players. Breaking up a fight between two strangers on the street. Giving the salami sandwich you packed for lunch to a hungry-looking guy with holes in his shirt. Remembering that salami is actually thick slices of a cow that didn't ask to die. Understanding that you're part of something bigger, part of a giant, bloodied human wound. That this disease called caring is incurable and always will be.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“Living is the easiest thing in the world. Your mom pushes, a man in a white coat on the other side of the uterus pulls. Out you pop, and someone cuts your umbilical cord. You start crying. The lights are too bright. Air enters your lungs. Air exits your lungs. Air enters your lungs. Air exits. Air enters. Exits. It's a piece of cake. A walk in the park. You're alive.

Living is the easiest thing in the world. Surviving ... that's another story. They attack you with pitchforks, they attack you with batons. They attack you with axes, with diseases, with cars. They come at you with tsunamis, with earthquakes, with a stroke. With a malignant tumor, a benign tumor, malignant tumor, benign tumor, malignant tumor. Let's see you get out of that alive.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“The woman's name turned out to be Sarit, and the next day Daniel made them go to the funeral. He said they needed closure, and that as far as he was concerned, it was either a funeral or couples therapy. Romi had no desire to go to the funeral, but therapy sounded even worse, like a cross between mud wrestling and divorce court.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories

“The only other Oshik she’d ever known was her dad’s uncle, an insurance broker from Netanya, and he was eaten by a shark. It was a big story back in the day, and there was an intimidating TV reporter at the shiva, who pounced on Dorit and her older sister, Rotem, demanding to interview them. Rotem told her that Oshik was an angel now, and that they would remember him forever. When the reporter asked Dorit what she would recall about Uncle Oshik in twenty years, Dorit stammered that the thing she would always remember was that a shark had eaten him.”
― Etgar Keret, Autocorrect: Stories