I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.

I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. To me it was meaningless. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sings about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.

When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.

Audiences are audiences.

Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?

No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.

I refuse to do shows that are narrowly constructed, that appeal to only one sentiment. I do a lot of Jewish material in front of non-Jews and a lot of non-Jewish material in front of Jews on the simple theory that the non-Jews are entitled to a glimpse of a Jewish world and the Jews are entitled to a glimpse of the world.