"The faith religious believers have in God is small compared to the faith people put in politicians, knowing how many times they have been disappointed in the past but still insisting that this time it will be different."

"Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holy of holies of Jewish time. It is that rarest of phenomena, a Jewish festival without food. Instead it is a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment when, collectively and repeatedly, we confess our sins and pray to be written into God's Book of Life."

"Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent."

"Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear."

"Bronagh looks after the kids and without her the family would disintegrate... there are some things you can't discuss with anyone other than your wife. There has to be a strong bond of trust."

"I read the NY Times but I don't trust all of it."

"When trust improves, the mood improves."

"It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with."