If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state.

It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.

Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.

I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.

But for 30 years, Orthodox leaders have tipped the balance between hawks and doves, and have been in a position to determine who forms a coalition and who runs the country.

And in this respect, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim.

I wrote a novel about Israelis who live their own lives on the slope of a volcano. Near a volcano one still falls in love, one still gets jealous, one still wants a promotion, one still gossips.

A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.

Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It's a conflict between two victims.

The actual gap between Labor, Likud and the new central party is microscopic.

But The Same Sea is set precisely in this Israel, which never makes it to the news headlines anywhere. It is a novel about everyday people far removed from fundamentalism, fanaticism nationalism, or militancy of any sort.

Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right.

If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state.

On my parents' scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.

One of the things I wanted to introduce in The Same Sea beyond transcending the conflict, is the fact that deep down below all our secrets are the same.

In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.

I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples - the Israeli people and the Palestinian people - are ahead of their leaderships.

I recommend the art of slow reading.

All of my novels are democracies.

Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.

Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago.

The Old Testament is full of poetry, prophecies, chronicles, documentations, storytelling, fairytales.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

I've been lucky enough to have had the luxury of being able to make the picture I've wanted to make each time on my own terms and without compromise.

Every day there is a compromise. Living with somebody requires a lot of understanding. But I love being married. I really love it.

Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples.

But transitions from the politics of violence to democratic compromise are always messy.

Feeling is the consciousness of the resulting conditions - of success, failure, equilibrium, compromise or balance, in this continuous rivalry of ideas.

And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass anything. They have to compromise with liberal Democrats to spend more money. Even though arguably we have control of the Senate, we really don't.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.

If you find yourself in a movie that you have questions about, it's not a compromise to your integrity.

Ultimately, there is no compromise. Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

The government can still conduct clandestine searches of innocent people's private information such as library, medical, and financial records. This is wrong and should have been addressed in a true compromise.

Don't compromise even if it hurts to be yourself.

No, you're not allowed to be bossy when you're married. You have to learn compromise, and compassion and patience.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position, not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?

The swift wind of compromise is a lot more devastating than the sudden jolt of misfortune.

I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.