The whole Zionist project was based on a whole spectrum of different and even conflicting dreams and visions.

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.

Be brave enough to never yearnFor that you cannot hold closeIn your heart forever.Tread lightly, cherish compassionAnd live in the moment without fear.

Never compare your grief.You - and only youwalk your path.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.

A championship team wins because it already has established players, while a talented team is just beginning to establish players.

I grew up with action movies in my head.

Brokeback Mountain' just blew me away. I'll always remember talking to Heath Ledger just after he finished that movie and he was going on about working with Ang and how incredible he was.

Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.

There are no short and easy paths to a long and lasting happiness.

I come from the south, so you're useless and you're a bit pathetic. That's the first thing that the northerners think of you.