If you steal from one book you are condemned as a plagiarist, but if you steal from ten books you are considered a scholar, and if you steal from thirty or forty books, a distinguished scholar.

The Old Testament is full of poetry, prophecies, chronicles, documentations, storytelling, fairytales.

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy; it is a clash between right and right. And, therefore it's not black and white. Sometimes, recently it is indeed a clash between wrong and wrong. It is not as simple as fascism was.

I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as "task" or "role" when they are attached to literature.

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

I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.