The way that I feel about my Jewish identity has been really radically changed by events in life. Like, becoming a writer is one. Having children is another. And getting older and watching, you know, my parents and grandparents get older has been another, the seasons of - being witness to the seasons of life and wanting to have some kind of infrastructure to deal with it, to cope with them. Ritual has become more important to me as I've gotten older. It's not always religious ritual, but it often borrows from Judaism.

I see myself as someone who makes things. Definitions have never done anything but constrain.

To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry.

The disgraced Usurer Yankel D took the baby girl home that evening... He made a bed of crumpled newspaper in a deep baking pan and gently tucked it in the oven, so that she wouldn't be disturbed by the noise of the small falls outside... When he pulled her out to feed her or just hold her, her body was tattooed with the newsprint... Sometimes he would rock her to sleep in his arms, and read her left to right, and know everything he needed to know about the world. If it wasn't written on her, it wasn't important to him.

...there are only some many times you can utter "It does not hurt" before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt.

The only thing worse than being sad is for others to know you are sad.

Consumers are going to have get used to eating less meat - to paying more for better quality meat and eating significantly less of it.