"An artist who knows what he wants in art – not in success, but in art – must create two things: his work and the audience to which he aims. His audience is also created gradually. Anyone who cannot do so, should appeal to the wider audience, and those who can, should slowly cultivate their own audience. And hope."

"Of all that I have lost in my life, what pains me most are the lost memories. They exist, they are inside of me, supposedly mine, but are lost forever."

"You came into my life,
you were light and consolation
you came into my life
like a warming sun.

From a great distance I walk
The path to your home
From afar, I call your name."

"But if you've changed, maybe we can change too. We were created in your image, weren't we? Maybe one day we too can relieve ourselves of power and stop hurting each other."

"I will come to your door, my lips dim. I will drop my hands to you. I will tell you all the good words, that are there, that are still there..."

"I love you for that you don't speak,
For that you have no tears,
For your laugh that has silenced, for having no wisdom,
Though you are words, you have no substance,
For that you are the world."

"Someone once wrote that a work of art is an excitement recalled in tranquility. Works. Works of art are eternal storms bound in ropes."

"Now I sit here alone,
With that cold moment.
I know how poor your heart is,
How sterile your beauty.
But despite myself, that same love
Still cries out your name
Still calls out for your hand on my shoulder
That one tender touch."

"You tell me, is it enough for a person to live so as to have a biography, or must there be content in that life as well?"

"On the brink of my death, I would like to write
A great comedy,
Something to give you a
Wonderful, tremendous mood,
Something to put a smile on your lips,
And occasionally some laughter
To leave you when you go home
With a feeling of great satisfaction."

"I do not balk at any physical labor, provided it is not very exhausting, because exhausting work is unsuitable for anyone but those who do not exhaust."

"I need to criticize the society I live in through the axis between tradition and progress, religion and secularity, and ceremonies are the channel for these things. My statement is that we are lost, we've abandoned everything but built nothing new. Do I have a solution? An alternative, am I offering a narrative or a lifestyle, or do I merely criticize? Do I have a utopia? A fantasy?"

"As I stood by an abandoned checkpoint, I wanted to get a ride to my kibbutz, which was near Nazareth. But two hours went by, and a truck stopped for me. The driver bent towards me and said: "Zichron Yaacov". I shook his hand warmly: Kishon Ephraim."

"Wait for a while longer, shut your eyes
Wait another moment – no more
The night is not only a dream and skies
Sometimes it's a prayer for a different tomorrow."

"So what is a man? Is he what he said yesterday, or what he cries now, or his silence in a moment?"

"Love is not butterflies and birds and excitement. Love is commitment. If you get up every morning and ask: "where's my happiness? What about me? When is it my turn? Do I deserve it? Don't I? me and me and me", odds are you'll be very miserable. But if you get up in the morning and ask: "how can I make the other person happy?", you might have a chance at a scrap of happiness."

"Here are the trees with the murmur of their leaves
Here is the air that is dizzy up high
I do not want
To write about them
I want to touch their hearts."

"In case you hadn't noticed, life's already begun."

"I'm not sure what I really remember, I don't trust my memory, it is sneaky and does not possess one single truth. You think, and a moment later you remember only what you want to."

"Dying is an art, just like any other. It's knowing when to get off stage while leaving a desire for more, and not being wearisome. That is how to die correctly."