Quotes from Theodore Bikel

In my mind the city of Ariel is a thorn in Israel's side and a serious obstacle to peace.

Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

No movement can afford to be caught in a time warp and exist in a state of suspended animation.

I'm exceedingly proud of being an actor, but I never recommend it to anyone.

I tried for a while to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sing about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

I am first, and foremost, an actor. That's what I am. To me, a song is a mini-drama. My musical ability informs the actor as well because it gives me a sense of timing that non-musicians don't have. So, one hand washes the other.

'Retiring' - within that word is 'tiring,' and I'm not tired. I don't believe in retirement, really.

But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, and that is truer in the arts than anywhere else.

You learn more from the flops than from the hits.

I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew.

I don't speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.

You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.

I prefer to choose which traditions to keep and which to let go.

I am not, and have never been, in favor of boycotting Israel.

You can't expect the entire world to come to New York to see you. You have to travel to them.

There is no role I cannot play except a midget.

While we all could agree that the Zionist ideal is alive and well, there is serious doubt whether the Zionist movement can be said to be an ongoing proposition, fragmented as its components are in ideology and in practice.

I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

Must we be put to shame by much smaller and poorer countries, by Ireland, France, Austria or Sweden, who have understood that a nation's support of its arts is a matter of both national pride and cultural survival?

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. By what conduit do we know what we know?