Quotes from Sayed Kashua

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.

Nor did she believe in identity, certainly not the local nationalistic version of it. She said that man was only smart if he was able to shed his identity. Skin color is a little hard to shed, she said, it's true. But the DNA of your social class is even harder to get rid of.

his instructing her

Life became much more difficult with the Intifada, and my wife and I began to regret that we hadn't rented in the Israeli half. The rent's a little high, but we would have managed with a smaller home.

The kids' rooms are not decorated. There are no pictures or posters on the doors or the walls, and that is true of all the rooms of the house in which my wife and kids live and the dorm room in which I spend most of my time. We are careful not to leave any marks, because you never know when it'll be time to get up and go.

To be critical of television is almost like questioning the fact of God's existence.

I'm afraid of a gas leak, although I installed detectors. I'm afraid of a blown fuse that could cause a fire, and that's why I don't turn on electrical appliances at night.

Everything in London is quite good, apart from the weather: it's cold and rainy there, and the winter is long.

I began to write, believing that all I had to do to change things would be to write the other side, to tell the stories that I heard from my grandmother.

I wish I could be proud of being an Israeli citizen, but how can I do that when I'm not really recognized as a full citizen?

When I come to the airport, they always send me with all the other Israeli Arabs to the foreign workers' line. I don't mind. I feel like I belong more with all the people from abroad and the foreign workers than in the Israelis' line.

For one moment, after I left Jerusalem with my family for life in Illinois, I thought that maybe there's still a chance: maybe there are still enough people in Israel who refuse to rule and oppress another nation.

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

Sometimes it seems that what really worries the Israeli governments, even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, is the real Egypt.

Is it too late to institute a leap year and mandate that the holidays fall on regular, convenient dates - so that Id al-Fitr will come, say, in the spring and Id al-Adha in early summer?

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.

Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie.

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

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.

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

As I see it, religion shouldn't interfere in a relationship.

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.

I hate it when I have to abandon my children. I politely turn down most of the invitations I get from abroad and try to fly only when it's absolutely necessary.

I wanted to bring likable Arabs into the average Israeli living room.