I grew up in a world where the social democratic state was the norm, not the exception.

Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.

We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world.

Israel today is bad for the Jews.

Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.

If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants

If we remain grotesquely unequal, we shall lose all sense of fraternity: and fraternity, for all its fatuity as a political objective, turns out to be the necessary condition of politics itself.

Judaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.

Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over.

the military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of its totality.

In my experience there are billions of dollars available for pieces of shit. As soon as the material distinguishes itself by something interesting, financing becomes a problem.

The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love.

People come up to me... concerned... that I'll reproduce.

In order to deviate successfully, one has to have at least a passing acquaintance with whatever norm one expects to deviate from.

Afghanistan will be a brother of Pakistan. Afghanistan will never betray a brother

All that a critic, as critic, can give poets is the deadly encouragement that never ceases to remind them of how heavy their inheritance is.

Without getting real personal, we liked our bass player Ed. He was a great guy and he was a good bass player but his playing was suited for a different style of band.

We all need to be huge supporters of the theatrical documentary.

Too often we try to use God to change our circumstance, when God is trying to use our circumstance to change us.

Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved.