When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, 'Who are these people? Why should we watch them?

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.

In fact history does not belong to us but we belong to it.

It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.

Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants.