'Cancer' is such a frightening word.

I began to speak well at a very advanced age - 15, 16, 17 years old. It was psychological: the trauma of war, my family and growing up on my own. I was more or less a street kid.

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

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.