I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.
How can I be secure? Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what’s beyond measure? That’s a sickness. That’s a trap. There is no measure. Only greed.
Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.
You don’t know what life is. You know nothing.
Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
One can read all one wants, and spend eternities in front of a blackboard with a tutor, but one is not going to learn to swim until one gets in the water.
All of us. All of us. We’re doomed.
The most charming of theories holds that someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays – that he was of too low a state, and of insufficient education. But where in the wide history of the world do we find art created by the excessively wealthy, powerful, or educated?
All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace.
Don’t assume I’m dumb because I wear a suit and tie.
Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival.
We all die in the end, but there’s no reason to die in the middle.
The theatre is traditionally where people go to hear the truth.
For it is written that just as it is forbidden to partake of the forbidden, it is forbidden not to partake of the permitted.
Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.
You want to get Capone? Here’s how you get him: he pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. It’s the Chicago way and that’s how you get Capone.
The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.
A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds – one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.