One might have thought the world would stop ascribing moral equivalence between acts of terrorism and acts of punishing terrorism. It has not happened that way.

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.

No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.

I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.

The future is only the past again, entered through another gate.

You have to see the human being in the enemy. If there is potential for change, there is still hope.

Making those around you feel invisible is the opposite of leadership.

The conscientious objector is a revoultionary. On deciding to disobey the law he sacrifices his personal interests to the most important cause of working for the betterment of society.

A lot of times passion projects or films are difficult to make because they don't have proven directors attached to them.

Poems come from incomplete knowledge.

The first time someone called me a role model, I remember thinking, 'What does that mean?' But I feel aware of it when I'm reading scripts.

There are truths of which I have an inkling, but of most I have only a pencilling

Anyone who grows up with parents who are very influential, there are cases where people run away from that if they have parents who are really lame.