I do think we're on the edge of a terrifying world, and that many young people know that but don't know how to talk about it.

I'm not sure I've learned anything new about life; but I've had to think harder about death and what comes after for other people.

I don't believe that one should have one-size-fits-all moral rules for international political action.

The people whose necks hurt when I write about the Middle East tend to live in Brooklyn or Boca Raton: the kind of Zionist who pays another man to live in Israel for him. I have nothing but contempt for such people.

I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views.

We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies.