Sayed Kashua

“It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.”

“There's a lot of hypocrisy and condescension in Israel's institutionalized support for Mubarak's tyrannical rule, in its backing of a corrupt leader who established a brutal secret police state to suppress his citizens and keep their mouths shut.”

“The Palestinians have tried everything, and by God, it's Israel's governments that taught us that the only thing the Israelis appreciate is force.”

“I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.”

“I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.”

“Well, you can't say you are lucky to live in Champaign, but I was lucky to be at the University of Illinois. It's a very international cosmopolitan community. That's very helpful.”

“I wanted the Israeli mainstream audience to meet different kinds of Arabs - not just terrorists or politicians - and to listen to their language and their stories.”

“It's problematic being an Arab who writes in Hebrew.”

“Back in Israel, I would spend much effort and plenty of money on presents when I went abroad, even if it was only for two days.”

“I don't like identity. We accept identities in Israel. We make them holy. But what does identity really mean?”

“I tell you a joke to have you listen to me, and then maybe I will tell you another joke that we can laugh together and feel equal. And then I will tell you a story hopefully that will make you cry. So I think that's the way that I approach the columns, as a surviving tool in a way.”

“Thanksgiving is the only day of the year when most of the stores here are closed during the day and reopen after midnight. Even restaurants shut down for the holiday, except for the fast-food chains.”

“I don't really wake up in the morning and say, 'Ohmigod, I'm a Palestinian in a Jewish state.' I wake up in the morning and say, 'Ohmigod, I have to make sandwiches for my kids.'”

“My children don't even know who Fairuz is - a horrifying thought.”

“'Arab Labor' was light, snappy. We got emotional over things, but from a safe place, from the terrace.”

“I wanted to tell, in Hebrew, about my father who sat in jail for long years, with no trial, for his political ideas. I wanted to tell the Israelis a story, the Palestinian story.”

“Israeli independence - what we Arabs call al-Naqba, 'The Catastrophe' - it created Palestinian identity more than anything else.”