James Sullivan

“By what twisted sophistication of argument do you harry people with violence off your land and then think yourself entitled to make high-minded stipulations as to where they may go now you are rid of them and how they may provide for their future welfare? I am an Englishman who loves England, but do you suppose that it too is not a racist country? Do you know of any country whose recent history is not blackened by prejudice and hate against somebody? So what empowers racists in their own right to sniff out racism in others? Only from a world from which Jews believe they have nothing to fear will they consent to learn lessons in humanity. Until then, the Jewish state’s offer of safety to Jews the world over yes, Jews first – while it might not be equitable cannot sanely be constructed as racist. I can understand why a Palestinian might say it feels racist to him, though he too inherits a history of disdain for people of other persuasions to himself, but not you, madam, since you present yourself as a bleeding-heart, conscience-pricked representative of the very Gentile world from which Jews, through no fault of their own, have been fleeing for centuries...”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Come over,’ he said. ‘I’ll order in Chinese.’
‘You speak Chinese now?’
‘Funny guy, Libor. Be here at eight.’
‘You sure you’re up for it?’
‘I’m a philosopher, I’m not sure about anything.’..”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Nothing has changed. It’s still very simple. I miss him. I miss him every day. I miss him very much.
But how would it be if that feeling was gone?
I would not want that to happen.
I told the shrink: it would not make me happy at all not to miss him anymore.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one most travelled by. It was littered with corpses, as such roads are. But as you will have noticed, my own corpse is not among them.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments