I reserve the right to tell shaggy dog stories or even common jokes as part of what I'm doing. I don't give a damn if half the audience walks out.

I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.

I had no idea where these kids at a small private college in the San Fernando Valley were coming from, why they were coming to hear me, or what they needed to know.

When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.

A myth is the name of a terrible lie told by a smelly little brown person to a man in a white suit with a pair of binoculars.

My way of thinking is very particular and concrete. It doesn't follow a continuous path.

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldnt understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer.