Clever tyrants are never punished.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

People who criticize power in the Jewish community are regarded the way Ahab treated Elijah: You're a traitor.

On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.