But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.

When I first began to combine letters other than Hebrew, I read every book in German that came my way, and from these I certainly received according to the nature of my soul.

After all my possessions had been burned, God gave me the wisdom to return to Jerusalem.

The beginnings of my studies also came to me from my father, as well as from the Rabbinical Judge of our town. But they were preceded by three tutors under whom I studied, one after the other, from the time I was three and a half till I turned eight and a half.

The fate of the singers who, like my songs, went up in flame was also the fate of the books which I later wrote. All of them went up in flame to Heaven in a fire which broke out one night at my home in Bad Homburg as I lay ill in a hospital.

Through these offices it was my privilege to get to know almost every Jewish person, and those whom I did not come to know through these offices I came to know through love and a desire to know my brethren, the members of my people.

If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after.

I returned to Jerusalem, and it is by virtue of Jerusalem that I have written all that God has put into my heart and into my pen.

Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing.

At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere.

As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile.

I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.

But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.

For myself, I am very small indeed in my own eyes.

Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.

I was five years old when I wrote my first song. It was out of longing for my father that I wrote it.

I've got a 12-year-old grandson who, when he was 3 years old, before he could say many other words, could name the different kinds of dinosaurs.

There are very few LeBron James and Kobe Bryants.

Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions.

I've always been able to transform happiness and pain and sorrow and tears into positive energy.

It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realise what your own beliefs really are.

I was the class innuendist.

The most important thing is that it's much more fun to play in a band than to be in an audience in a club. That's the main thing I think, that you can do it.

I like wearing scarves in my hair because they make me look put together without taking a lot of time.

The first time anything happens to you your first love your first success the second one is never the same.

It's difficult to choose a Word of the Year in the year that you're in. It's one of those things that hindsight makes more apparent. It's like looking at pictures from 10 years ago, and you notice the flannel and the ripped jeans. At the time, it didn't look to you like a real fashion trend.

Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate.

Creative works may indeed be kind of like property but its property that were all building on.

It is, and long has been my opinion, and I have heard honourable members in this House declare it to be theirs - that it is the duty of Parliament equally to protect all the different interests in the country.

I have someone else clean my house so that it will actually get cleaned, and I let kids in my house survive on Peeps and 'SpongeBob.'

I have no cancer. I have four illnesses, but they are not fatal.

I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

Hair is about when you're younger. I am my hair.

Marriage brings up all the things I pushed to the back burner - the fears, the mistrust, the doubts, the insecurities. It's like opening Pandora's box.

When I made Blue Moon Swamp, there was a lot of trial and error; I was trying to find people who would be simpatico with my style, and with what I had in mind for the album.

Has there ever been anybody, real or fictional, whiter than Betty Crocker?

Music is more difficult - try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political.

It is a fact that many of the wars and conflicts happening all over the world are aggravated or fought strictly for geopolitical fossil fuel energy interests, and many of the world's most dangerous regimes are funded by fossil fuel dollars.

Empathy is the stepping stone to respect.