Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over.

We need to start talking about inequality again; we need to start talking about the inequities and unfairnesses and the injustices of an excessively divided society, divided by wealth, by opportunity, by outcome, by assets and so forth.

It does irritate me when I am described as a controversialist and commentator on Israel.

I've lost count of the interviews I've done about my illness and its relationship to my ideas and writing.

I grew up in a world where the social democratic state was the norm, not the exception.

We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

I worry that we have forgotten that the de-ideologized, de-politicized, uncontentious public space of the last 50 years as Europeans have experienced it is not the normal human condition. We shall be sorry to have abandoned a little too quickly the institutions that were set up by our parents and grandparents to protect themselves against a return of the bad old world. Because the bad old world can still come back to haunt you.