Literature is about telling stories.

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.

If I understand Change, I shall make no great mistake in Life

A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States.

The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

I'm either going to have the career I want doing films, or I'll do something else - I'll be gone.

The number of maternal deaths is significantly understated because of a lack of effective data collection both in the US and around the world.

I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.

Grilled salmon and brown pasta works for me every time.

If you want a team of smart, creative people to do extraordinary things, don't put them in a drab, ordinary space.

It's important for a couple to talk about their sexual preferences. On the other hand, the aura of the mysterious should be preserved.