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.

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.

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 am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.

As she’d walked along this street, a million stars stretched across an indigo canvas, holding all the freedom she’d yearned for every night.

Just saying an intention and leaving it at that will not necessarily result in an outcome, if there is a stronger, more primal belief behind the scenes.

An honest man is always a child.

Bliss happens when we release all resistance to the moment.

I get to the point where I feel relaxed, and then I just shoot a ton of material and make a lot of different choices.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

I like the analogy that the way that we live in Western Society, the energy that we consume in the form of fossil fuels, is the energy equivalent in pre-fossil fuel terms of having 500 slaves.

Go for the sense of inner joy, of inner peace, of inner vision first and then all the other things from the outside appear.

Borrowing and spending is not the way to prosperity.

I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth." -Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist