Quotes from Alan Dershowitz

When you discriminate against anyone, you discriminate against everyone. It's a display of terrible intolerance.

There are two kinds of terrorism. Rational terrorism such as Palestinian terrorism and apocalyptic terrorism like Sept. 11. You have to distinguish between the two.

I have been defending Israel's right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate.

If America has the right to target Osama bin Laden, or terrorists, of course Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorism.

I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they're going into acting, they're going to win the Oscar... If they're going into law, they're going to be chief justice.

No country in the history of the world has ever contributed more to humankind and accomplished more for its people in so brief a period of time as Israel has done since its relatively recent rebirth in 1948.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

African-Americans are as fair as any other group, but they bring their life experiences to bear as just as whites bring their experiences to bear.

I've had such a satisfying life professionally and personally. I hope my tombstone says, 'Never boring.'

It's much better to have rules that we can actually live within. And absolute prohibitions, generally, are not the kind of rules that countries would live within.

I think extremists within the base may very well move the Democratic party away from its pro-Israel position.

I've thought hard about my psychological connections and I think I've managed to separate out the psychological from the legal, moral, and political.

Any human being has private thoughts.

It's every lawyer's dream to help shape the law, not just react to it.

The struggle for morality never stays won. It's always in process.

I'm never satisfied unless I get the last word.

Well, many insane people and seriously mentally ill people seem very reasonable.

There's no evidence that I'm aware of that guns reduce crime.

I've always worked.

I came from a poor family, so working and going to school at the same time was natural. It taught me multi-tasking, although we didn't call it that back then. I learned I could never be idle, I need to be doing many things at once.

When I decide who to vote for as president, I ask myself who will be best for America and for the world. An important component of my answer involves my assessment of the candidate's willingness and ability to protect Israel's security, since I strongly believe that a strong Israel serves the interests of the United States and of world peace.

When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today, and it's called the Internet.

I'm not a single-issue person, but I spend so much time on Israel because it is so unfairly condemned around the world.

I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time.