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.

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 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.

One of the things I wanted to introduce in The Same Sea beyond transcending the conflict, is the fact that deep down below all our secrets are the same.

What the future held for spirit, Emily could only imagine.

An epigram a day keeps the mind from going astray.

I want to do whatever I possibly can to be as good as I can be.

All the good stuff is on the other side of tired.

Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth.

Happy and successful homes cannot be built on immorality.

Conviction is the conscience of the mind.

What is behind homosexual marriage. It's really more about the destruction of the traditional family than about exalting homosexuality, because you need to destroy also loyalty to the family.

My resolve, my anger, even my grief gave me confidence

If you lose 50%, it takes 100% to get back to where you started-and that takes something you can never get back: time.