“My mother's side taught me to be a little bit afraid of everything. Fo...” — Howard Jacobson Quote

My mother's side taught me to be a little bit afraid of everything. For a long time, I was quiet and cautious. But shyness makes you notice other people's excruciations and feel for them. I think that made a writer of me.

It is against the spirit of our non-discriminating times to openly prefer one sort of music to another, so let's just say that hearing grand orchestral music in a public place is exhilarating in a way that hearing popular music never can be, if only because, in a popular music age, a full orchestra is less familiar to our ears.

I once gave a character in a novel my inability to get past the same point in any work of philosophy: that moment when seeing is suddenly occluded and you know you can go no further.

I've always felt as much outside the Jewish experience as in it. It astonished my family that I wrote about things Jewish.

I'm cautious in matters of the heart.

I probably should be a little more cautious with how I speak, and I think my delivery needs to be a little softer.

I'm very cautious of how I'm presented and my type of reputation.

Any time I see anything moving onstage, I'm cautious about it.

There's no such thing as a cautious creative.