Everything is in it: the promise and the hope and the fear and the challenge and the defiance. The test is a double test: Just as God tested Abraham, Abraham tested God: "Let's see if you really want me to go ahead with it and kill my son." Then the angel says, "Do not raise your hand against the boy" [Genesis 22:12]. It was the Angel of God who says this, not God. God was embarrassed. [All laugh]

Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed.

For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.

It's not only America. Terrorism now is a threat to the whole world.

It always hurts when you lose a secret.

There are moments when I think it will never end, that it will last indefinitely. It's like the rain. Here the rain, like everything else, suggests permanence and eternity. I say to myself: it's raining today and it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day, the next week and the next century.

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.