Howard Jacobson

"Although I was too young to understand the theory of universal (that's to say male) guilt, I was old enough to know which sex suffered migraine and which sex caused it."

"All those words of praise they use for novels – spare, economical. Why should I shell out £17 for economical?"

"I'm a Jewish Jane Austen."

"But here's something that puzzles me: is not victim-blaming counted among the worst of crimes wherever courses on faith and diversity, race and ethnicity, feminist philosophy and so on are taught. Or is victim-blaming an academic luxury not afforded to Jews? Israelis, do I mean? I understand the distinction. The separation between Israel and Jews is fundamental to anti-Zionist discourse. Anti-Semitic, I am assured repeatedly, is the last thing anti-Zionists are. But understand that the sight of Israelis who just happen to be Jews being manhandled into cars and driven away into captivity stirs memories of events that Jews hoped never to be caught up in again. One of the elderly Israeli hostages who just happens to be Jewish is a peacenik who lived in a kibbutz close to Gaza and ferried sick Gazans to hospitals in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He thought they were his friends. The experience of friends turning on you the minute a |pogrom gets under way is also burned into the minds of Jews."

"In the matrimonial life of the Jewish male every day is Yom Kippur."

"In the highly improbable event of his being asked to nominate the one most un-Jewish thing he could think of, Sefton Goldberg would have been hard pressed to decide between Nature – that's to say birds, trees, flowers, and country walks – and football – that's to say beer, bikies, mud, and physical pain."

"He was as sentimental as Hitler about applause and crowds."