I created the role of Captain Von Trapp.

I am first, and foremost, an actor. That's what I am. To me, a song is a mini-drama. My musical ability informs the actor as well because it gives me a sense of timing that non-musicians don't have. So, one hand washes the other.

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.

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.

You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.

For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.