I know one or two things about fanaticism and death, and I reject them.

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 you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

True intelligence requires fabulous imagination.

Shifting problems is the first rule for a long and pleasant life.

Sometimes neuroscientists ask impossible questions.

Metaphysics is a cobweb that the mind weaves around things.

I hate doubt, yet I am certain that doubt is the only way to approach anything worth believing in.

We're always hearing about risk-takers whose risks paid off, but they are no braver than those whose risks end in ridicule.

Somebody once said that Hollywood is based on a lot of producers deliberately making bad movies, and every now and then somebody gets lucky.

Soccer is an art more central to our culture than anything the Arts Council deigns to recognize.

People need to put my music in a perspective where they use other established artists from the past, and almost all the names I see related to my music are great musicians.