Chaim Potok: "Sastra memberi Anda pemetaan alternatif dari pengalaman...

"Sastra memberi Anda pemetaan alternatif dari pengalaman manusia. Anda melihat bahwa pengalaman orang lain dan budaya lain sama kaya, koheren, dan bermasalah seperti pengalaman Anda sendiri. Mereka dilanda penderitaan seperti milikmu. Sastra adalah sejenis voyeurisme yang sah melalui lubang kunci bahasa di mana Anda benar-benar mengenal kehidupan orang lain - kesedihan mereka, cinta mereka, hasrat mereka. Seringkali Anda menemukan bahwa begitu Anda terjun ke dalam kehidupan itu dan berada di bawah permukaan, lapisannya, ada kedekatan yang nyata."

--- Chaim Potok

Versi Bahasa Inggris

Literature presents you with alternate mappings of the human experience. You see that the experiences of other people and other cultures are as rich, coherent, and troubled as your own experiences. They are as beset with suffering as yours. Literature is a kind of legitimate voyeurism through the keyhole of language where you really come to know other people's lives--their anguish, their loves, their passions. Often you discover that once you dive into those lives and get below the surface, the veneer, there is a real closeness.