One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

Right now, I'm Writing song lyrics. Experimenting with a play. Toying with an idea for a documentary. I hope one of these will eventually be launched into the light of day.

My six handbooks to Jewish life and lifecycle events mostly followed the trajectory of my adult Jewish life.

I love many kinds of music: world music, jazz, classical, pop.

Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent.

Until very recently men and women inhabited very separate spheres. There was always interconnection, passion, love. But men and women didn't hang out at the end of the day and chat about what their day was like at the office.

November is Jewish book month, so Jewish Community Centers all around the country have book fairs where they invite authors and sell books in advance of the holidays.

The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.

The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.

My early childhood was spent in Newark, New Jersey, but my family moved to Denver when I was 12.

Biblical names are hot again.

There's something almost adolescent about Whitman's paean to everything that was and remains good about America.

Since 1985, I have written about contemporary Jewish practice and the Jewish community.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.

My husband, Jim, converted to Judaism just before our wedding.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

The Bible - it's sort of the other person in the room. There's this book, the reader, and the Bible.

I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

I have a 10-year track record of writing for the Jewish community.

When a shy person smiles, it's like the sun coming out.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.

It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand.

I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'.

No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

A Shakespeare could have arisen only on English soil. In the same way, your great dramatists and poets express the nature and essence of the Norwegian people, but they also express that which is universally valid for all mankind.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.

The true sovereign is not the American president nor the English king, but the Lord of the Second Advent.

The English press treated the world premiere of my first talking picture as a major event.

Let the teachers teach English and I will teach baseball. There is a lot of people in the United States who say isn't, and they ain't eating.

French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.

Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.