I try to see their moral relevance [in the Bible] and, of course, to admire the literary beauty of the text. Prophetic poetry: No one has written the way Isaiah does.

Words can be turned into spears. They can be turned into prayers. It's a strange world that you are in. But you deal with words.

My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.

Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.

Peace is our gift to each other.