Amos Oz Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.

  Amos Oz

  Writing, Two Sides, Voice

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  8 Copy quote

• Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words. It's not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words. In the same way in which music is made of notes and a painting is made of lines of colors, the matter of literature are words.

  Amos Oz

  Literature, Painting, Language

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

• I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples - the Israeli people and the Palestinian people - are ahead of their leaderships.

  Amos Oz

  Years, Two, People

  "Coping with Conflict: Israeli Author Amos Oz". Interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth, www.pbs.org. January 22, 2002.

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• I'm a great believer in compromise. I know it's not popular among young idealists. Compromise is not popular. It's not at all popular among young people who these days call themselves "activists." They think compromises are dishonest, opportunistic, humiliating. Not in my vocabulary. In my vocabulary, the word "compromise" is synonymous to the word "life".

  Amos Oz

  Thinking, People, Compromise

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

• D.H. Lawrence, I think, defined the difference between writing an article and writing a novel very well. He said, in writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.

  Amos Oz

  Writing, Thinking, Giving

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

• When I need to take a side, I write a newspaper article and I tell my government, "You should not do that, you should do this." They don't listen to me, but I've been doing this for sixty years now. But, when I write a novel, I am not in that business. I follow the way people change. I follow the way people, who are very antagonized to one another become very close to one another and vice-versa. Sometimes I follow the way people who are intimately close to each other move apart.

  Amos Oz

  Moving, Writing, People

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

• When people have peace, they hate it and long for excitement, and when they have excitement, they want peace.

  Amos Oz

  Hate, Long, People

  6 Copy quote

• Imagination needs food like every dog and every cat and every bird and every fish.

  Amos Oz

  Dog, Cat, Imagination

  4 Copy quote

• … that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.

  Amos Oz

  Loneliness, Self, Hands

  14 Copy quote

• The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy; it is a clash between right and right. And, therefore it's not black and white. Sometimes, recently it is indeed a clash between wrong and wrong. It is not as simple as fascism was.

  Amos Oz

  Black And White, Simple, Tragedy

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  5 Copy quote

• Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.

  Amos Oz

  Religious, Eight, Israel

  "Coping with Conflict: Israeli Author Amos Oz". "PBS NewsHour" with Elizabeth Fransworth, www.pbs.org. January 22, 2002.

  9 Copy quote

• We have to carry through to the next day and hope that we will be okay tomorrow as we are today and in the meantime, enjoy life.

  Amos Oz

  Next Day, Enjoy Life, Today

  Source: www.spiegel.de

  6 Copy quote

• The Old Testament is full of poetry, prophecies, chronicles, documentations, storytelling, fairytales.

  Amos Oz

  Documentation, Fairytale, Old Testament

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  6 Copy quote

• Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.

  Amos Oz

  Book, Musical, Literature

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  5 Copy quote

• The gift of literature is that, in some lucky cases, reading a novel or a story makes the reader more curious, more open-minded.

  Amos Oz

  Reading, Lucky, Stories

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  7 Copy quote

• She had not wanted him to but had let him have his way because ever since she was a child she had generally yielded before anyone with strong willpower, especially if it was a man, not because she was naturally submissive, but because strong male willpower gave her a feeling of safety and trust, together with acceptance and a desire to give in.

  Amos Oz

  Strong, Children, Acceptance

  Amos Oz, Nicholas Robert Michael De Lange (2011). “Scenes from Village Life”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.

  Amos Oz

  Bird, Way, Sharon

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• The actual gap between Labor, Likud and the new central party is microscopic.

  Amos Oz

  Party, Gaps, Labor

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• The Palestinians have no other land. They are absolutely right about this. The Israeli Jews also have no other land and they are absolutely right about this. It is a tragedy of two peoples claiming the same very small country - very small, about the size of New Jersey. And both of them are right. Both of them have no other homeland as peoples. As individuals, maybe, but not as a people.

  Amos Oz

  Country, Land, Two

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• In some of the Israeli media, but not all, they read about very nasty things done by Israeli settlers and soldiers to Palestinian Arabs. This is a pain in the neck for many Israelis. They say: Leave us alone, what can we do about it? Or they say: Look at Syria, look at Iraq, the West Bank is paradise by comparison. I was one of the first to say, shortly after the Six-Day War, that occupation is corrupting. It corrupts the occupier and, in a different way, it corrupts the occupied.

  Amos Oz

  Pain, War, Media

  Source: www.spiegel.de

  5 Copy quote

• Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. Dreams fulfilled are imperfect. And, Israel is imperfect, of course it is - a far cry from the monumental dreams of the founding fathers. One of the reasons is that their dreams were unrealistic. They were bigger than life. These were messianic dreams, dreams about total redemption for the Jews, for the world. Such dreams do not come true, not in their entirety.

  Amos Oz

  Dream, Father, Redemption

  Source: logger.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

• Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago. "The State of the Jews" was not a title of a country. It was a title of a futuristic novel. A little more than a hundred years ago, "Tel Aviv" was not a city. It was a title of another novel written by the same author. The "Return to Zion" was a name of another novel. There was a bookshelf. There was no state. There was no nation. All you can see, if you look through the window - everything you see is a fulfillment of dreams, different dreams.

  Amos Oz

  Dream, Country, Different

  "Everybody comes from somewhere". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.

  Amos Oz

  Israel, Want, Neighbor

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• The English language took in many many fertilizations, many many genes, from other languages, from foreign languages - Latin, French, Nordic languages, German, Scandinavian languages.

  Amos Oz

  Latin, Language, Nordic

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

• Many intellectuals in America and in Europe, they are in the habit of taking sides: who are the bad guys? who are the good guys? They launch a demonstration against the bad guys, sign a petition in favor of the good guys, and going to sleep feeling well about themselves.

  Amos Oz

  Sleep, Europe, America

  "'Everybody comes from somewhere.' An Interview with Writer Amos Oz". Interview with Prashanth Ramakrishna, logger.believermag.com. October 20, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

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