Do not cut lose from your longings - for what are we without our longings?

Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.

Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.

Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.

Words create conceptions and self-conceptions and ultimately nations. They can start and stop wars. They can would and heal. Choosing words carefully is a moral responsibility.

A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.

All of my novels are democracies.

The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out.

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

Now, Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is not so much a testimony about the failures of Israel. No, it is a testimony about the nature of dreams.

What is within is untouchable.

Stop shying away from people. If you actually took a moment to listen to what they have to say, they might just say something that will change your life.

You speak as if this is a good world with a little evil in it. Rubbish. It's a hellish one where the best a man can do is put a little sanity back and look after his own.

Nations as well as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence or zeal.

The first part of madness is believing what you hear. The Second is acting on it.

Stop crying to the ocean, stop crying over me. Stop worrying over nothing, stop worrying over me. So it's been so long since you said, well I know what I want and what I want's right here with you.

A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.

What about Mickey Mouse? Disney tried very hard to make him a star. But Mickey Mouse is more of a symbol than a real character.

I think the pop industry is still a young man's game.

I hated Hemingway. I liked Faulkner but he was a bore.