Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

September 11, 2001, revealed heroism in ordinary people who might have gone through their lives never called upon to demonstrate the extent of their courage.

If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt.

They say the Lord's Day is a day of rest, but those who preach this generally are not women.

When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.

Even the classics that we read to our young children are full of wolves' fangs and burning ovens and bloody feet and ice shards piercing hearts. Even the New Testament climaxes with an act of unspeakable torture. Might as well just read to our kids from the Amnesty Annual Report and be done with it.