Through a historical catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome - I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.

If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after.

On everything you need to hear other people's opinions. It's the only way to do things. You ask a friend's advice and then between the two of you things somehow get clearer.

I was five years old when I wrote my first song. It was out of longing for my father that I wrote it.

The beginnings of my studies also came to me from my father, as well as from the Rabbinical Judge of our town. But they were preceded by three tutors under whom I studied, one after the other, from the time I was three and a half till I turned eight and a half.

God in heaven sits on high and plays games with us. He has plenty to do up there, what with building worlds and then knocking them down again, breaking things up and then rebuilding them, and yet he can manage to put his mind even to a little grocer in his shop or to a babe in the cradle.

People's talk and the stories they tell have been engraved on my heart, and some of them have flown into my pen.