“The magic word 'Shakespeare' always freezes you in your chair.” — Howard Jacobson Quote

The magic word 'Shakespeare' always freezes you in your chair.

Nobody who's thought about politics or democracy over the thousands of years that people have been thinking about democracy hasn't come up against the fact that the people will often be wrong. And what do you do when they are? You can't just say, 'Well, it's the will of the people.'

There was no question of ever sending us to Jewish schools... They wanted us out there. They wanted us to be lawyers and doctors. They wanted us out of the religious thing, apart from that ethnic bonding.

'Legality' is a mad phrase to use when it comes to the founding of nations. Australia was founded on illegality. For the Americans to go in and dispossess the American Indians was illegal.

If you lived the doubles, as I did, which was very stressful, you are sitting down in a chair experiencing a match without being able to hold a racquet in your hands.

There's just something about BJ Penn that gets people amped up. You don't know what's going to happen but something is going to happen. He might disappoint you, make you happy, make you cry or make you jump out of your chair, but he'll do something to you.

I've stayed in hotels where you were scared to even put your feet on the floor, or had to sleep in a chair.

It is this desire to see civil society remain a strong and united force within the U.K. that has encouraged me to chair Citizens U.K. Commission on Islam, Participation and Public Life.