I'm a great believer in compromises. I do not believe in capitulation.

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.

Only the Creator defines path of a river course.

Your eyes should never be lent to the devil

Vampires, bringing America together!

What we need is a rebirth of satire of dissent of irreverence of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.

I have never seen a wrestling match or a prize fight, and I don't want to. When I find out a man is interested in these sports, I drop him.

Experiences are everything. And businesses must create experiences that mean something. If necessity is the mother of invention, then vision is the father of innovation.

You'd be amazed at how much power women have over men - and the basic control is nagging... Men are very simple creatures, like puppies.

Generosity is the only legitimate selfishness.

As long as you have the memories, you can be with that person forever.

Not beauty, no, but virtue rais'd my fires, whose sacred flame did cherish chaste desires.