When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'

I have a tremendous respect for Professor [Frank Moore] Cross.

Writing is like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate, in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain

Hunger is isolating; it may not and cannot be experienced vicariously. He who never felt hunger can never know its real effects, both tangible and intangible. Hunger defies imagination; it even defies memory. Hunger is felt only in the present.

One person of integrity can make a difference.

Abraham is trying to obey God, but not to kill. I feel that moment is one of the defining moments of Jewish faith.

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.