On my parents scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.

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.

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education

My mother is a living angel

Although the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing.

Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

I talk to grown-ups who are out to have a good time and they want to be spoken to in a different way. I don't want to be pandered to, so I try not to pander.

I feel it's a person's duty to participate in the governing of the country in which he lives.

I guess I'm a survivor. There are many of us survivors and any successful woman of my age has somewhat of that in her.

We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So when we are in the mess, remember Jesus made it right. We got to hang on to that by faith.

Defensively, I think it’s important for us to tackle.