Alain de Botton Quotes

No one in my family is Jewish; no one was raised as a Jew, me included.

Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.

My father's Jewish, so my world is Jewish whenever I go home.

My father was ethnically Jewish, but his family converted to Catholicism.

My dad was raised Orthodox in Atlanta. He speaks Hebrew. He speaks Yiddish. He married a Jewish woman who is not Orthodox, so I was brought up by two different kinds of Jews.

Looking back now, I can see that my dad was a real fighter. A lot of people thought, 'Why don't you keep the Jewish stuff quiet?' They were anti-Semitic Jews. People who were afraid. People who came here and made it and anglicized themselves and didn't want to associate with their past.

Judaism is a big part of my background, obviously, and my reality.

You can take a Jew out of a shtetl, but you cannot take a shtetl out of a Jew.

Sometimes people come to my shows and think I'm a Christian artist, and they put their hands up in the air, like they do. But first of all, I'm a Jewish girl from the Valley, and I'm from Los Angeles. It's funny to be misinterpreted.

Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.

I am not a Hollywood Jew and I won't ever be one.

My parents emigrated from Poland in 1924 with my brother, who was a few months old. They were from a simple family of Polish Jews. They were looking, I suppose, for a better economic life and were escaping from an anti-Semitic environment.

We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.

I think that every Saturday, we ought to say, 'My father's a Jew, my mother was a Jew, and I'm a Jew,' with great pride.

I'm certainly not a practicing Jew. I would never claim, 'I'm Jewish.' That's not the first and foremost thing in my mind, as far as who I am as a person.

My wife is Jewish, and therefore, it's my children's birthright to be Jewish.

When I tell people I'm an Italian Jew, they're very amused by it. But obviously by blood I'm Jewish, because my mother is.

I'm not super, super religious. If this is okay to say, I'm more culturally Jewish.

Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

I first discovered the Jewish People in America. I have seen any number of Jews, but the Jewish People I never met in Berlin or elsewhere in Germany. This Jewish People that I found in America came from … Eastern Europe generally. These men and women still retain a healthy ethnic feeling. It has not yet been destroyed by the process of atomization and dispersion.

I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity.

I always find that the more Jewish you are, the more people respect you.

My grandparents - my mom's parents - they're Jewish. But nobody ever pushed religion onto us. It wasn't something I ever grew up with.

President Trump proclaimed 'America First' from the inauguration stage. As an American Jew and daughter of immigrants, that slogan makes me shiver.

I have a very strong sense of who I am as a Jew and a strong sense of belonging.