Theodore Bikel

We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.

Theodore Bikel

Having come to live in this age is as though one were to have entered another country. Learn its language or risk being left out.

Theodore Bikel

No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language.

Theodore Bikel

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.

Theodore Bikel

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

Theodore Bikel

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.

Theodore Bikel

But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.

Theodore Bikel

I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family.

Theodore Bikel

Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission.

Theodore Bikel

On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.

Theodore Bikel

As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.

Theodore Bikel