The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. All of them take place in Israel - in Jerusalem, in the desert, in the kibbutz, in small towns, in villages.

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.

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

His argument is as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by oiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.

I went to college at North Carolina School of the Arts and took a lot of singing classes, and it really is so connected to emotions.

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

By the power of the superglue beer sword, I designate you my driver!

An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit.

There's no question that the number one contributor to climate change is livestock production. The quickest way to make an effect is to immediately start on a vegan diet.

It's the world, you live in it, even if some boy has made a fool of you.

I don't have to forgive you, Cath said. It's not like that with you. You're just in with me. Always. No matter what happens.

The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, 'What else are women for?