“Can we today measure devotion to husband and children by our indifference to everything else?”

My dear, old age is like an airplane flying in a storm. Once you’re in it there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop a plane, you can’t stop a storm, you can’t stop time. So you might as well take it easy, with wisdom.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

Being seventy is not a sin. It’s not a joy, either.

We say peace and the echo comes back from the other side, war. We dont want wars even when we win.

We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

It is always much easier, I have discovered, to make people cry or gasp than to make them think.

I never did anything alone. Whatever was accomplished in this country was accomplished collectively.

Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

Don’t be humble… you’re not that great.

Anybody who believes in something without reservation believes that this thing is right and should be, has the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them.

The deserts of the Middle East are in need of water, not bombers.

We don’t want wars even when we win.

A lot of children don’t find forever homes because they’re on that special-needs list, even if it’s because of something as simple as her mother smoked cigarettes for a month, not knowing she was pregnant.

When a mother asks for a second child her body forgets the pain of the first. When I give you a second chance my heart is being forgetful.

Gratitude is really, really attractive. A child who is genuinely grateful makes you want to do anything for her, and that is true of adults as well.

We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.

I would have been a terrible mother because I’m basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.

I just ultimately wanted to be a mother. I love children.

I believe we should encourage children to sing and play instruments from an early age.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.