"The only animals I'm not comfortable with are parrots, but I'm learning as I go. I'm getting better and better at 'em. I really am."

“The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.”

“The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.”

“Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?”

“The land is ours. I will do everything in my power, forever, to fight against a Palestinian state being founded in the Land of Israel.”

Source : "The Party Faithful". Interview with David Remnick, www.newyorker.com. January 21, 2013.

“You'd be surprised how much free time I have.”

Source : "Why will the likes of Straw and Rifkind never learn? Because they are addicted to being liked" by Ian Jack, www.theguardian.com. February 27, 2015.

“I've been told I have the biggest ego in the world and that it manifests itself when you come to me and say, 'I don't like this' or 'I want a change'... and that I relish that because my ego's so big I think I can solve whatever you throw at me and make it even better. I enjoy the interaction and the challenge.”

“My grandmother would croon over every scrap of meat on a sparerib like a medieval relic hunter musing on the knucklebone of a saint.”

“I had no plans to be a writer. My teenaged bid for stardom was to be a pop star... which, ahem, didn't exactly work out.”