Everyone in Tel Aviv knows Yosl Bergner. In 2006, the mayor made him a Freeman of the City. Now he carries a card which allows him to park his car anywhere with impunity. If only he could drive. – Clive Sinclair
I had a Latin master who, for no rational reason whatsoever – I was a very quiet kid at school – just hated me. – Clive Sinclair
I do not mean for one second to suggest that ‘White Doves at Morning’ was written with a movie deal in mind. Certainly not. – Clive Sinclair
My history was the Western. I grew up with the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid and Bonanza. I felt as much a child of the West as someone born in Montana or Wyoming. – Clive Sinclair
My own zigzag path through life led me back to Santa Cruz in the early Eighties, and I have revisited regularly since. The place hasn’t changed: head in the clouds, backside on the hills and feet in the ocean – one of the most decent and beautiful places on earth. – Clive Sinclair
Back when I was young, lists seemed like fences on the open range. But secretly, I was pleased to be corralled among other literary thoroughbreds. – Clive Sinclair
Copywriting cuts the communication cord between word and feeling. By offering instant gratification, it atrophies more subtle emotions. – Clive Sinclair
At school, I never had a hold on English history, and cheder was a place run by sadistic incompetents, so I felt alienated from the Jewish part of my past. – Clive Sinclair
Tel Aviv is buzzing with so much life, you could bottle it and sell it as honey, and even Jerusalem has a certain fizz. But if you want to see anger, go to Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon. – Clive Sinclair
One-eyed Reuben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn is the role that finally delivered John Wayne his Oscar. – Clive Sinclair
I owe my discovery of the Hot Club of Cowtown to Kinky Friedman, leader of the Texas Jewboys. When I saw that Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were headlining the 2003 Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival, I thought it my duty to check out the band that had inspired the Texas Jewboys. – Clive Sinclair
In 1966, I bought my parents a carriage clock for their silver wedding anniversary. It was last wound 30 years later, in December 1996, the month my father died. – Clive Sinclair
I still see the world as a place of bitter irony and black humour, failed hopes, dashed plans. I hope to make my work sparer, to outgrow my desire to show off. – Clive Sinclair
As I was writing, I realised I wasn’t sufficiently extrovert to gather enough interesting souls with tall tales around me. I was no Louis Theroux. But neither was I interested in exploring my inner life in public, in the manner of a Jonathan Raban. – Clive Sinclair
If someone like my father chooses to criticise Israeli policies, it’s not because he is a self-hating Jew, but because he is not prepared to live in a state of self-denial. – Clive Sinclair
Santa Cruz is blessed not only with natural wonders, but also with gifted souls who can fashion nature’s bounty into man-made treasures. – Clive Sinclair
It would be a big mistake to think that Chekhov was a natural, that he did not have to work for his effects and singular style. – Clive Sinclair
I’ll tell you now that I hate myself for many reasons, but being Jewish is not one of them. – Clive Sinclair
In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons. – Clive Sinclair
I went to UC Santa Cruz, overlooking the Bay of Monterey and Santa Cruz, in 1969. Back then, the city was part-hippie, part-surfer, but mostly retired chicken farmer. – Clive Sinclair
Heinrich Heine once imagined the exiled Israelite as a dog who regains his stolen manhood only when he embraces the Sabbath bride. I see western swing performing a similar function in hardscrabble Texas, turning dirt-poor hired hands into Dapper Dans with magic feet at the Saturday night hoe-down. – Clive Sinclair
I believe that there may well be a personal God out there – not a monotheistic God – that has got it in for me. – Clive Sinclair
