I think my sense of humor is Jewish. I'm smarter than most white people which is kind of a Jewish thing too.

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally there are exceptions... the Jewish Italian and Irish humor of the East Coast.

During the Second World War evacuated to non-Jewish households I encountered Christianity at home and in school.

Well I just said that Jesus and I were both Jewish and that neither of us ever had a job we never had a home we never married and we traveled around the countryside irritating people.

I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.

To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you're not aware of that when you're a child the whole tradition is lost.

Jews have a special relationship to books and the Haggadah has been translated more widely and reprinted more often than any other Jewish book. It is not a work of history or philosophy not a prayer book user's manual timeline poem or palimpsest - and yet it is all these things.

In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

One of the great strengths of the United States is... we have a very large Christian population - we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

I believe that for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government.