Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe. America is based on mythology - the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.

A. B. Yehoshua

Categorized in : Man You History Identity

Traveling is one expression of the desire to cross boundaries.

A. B. Yehoshua

boundaries expression desire

And this is one of the major questions of our lives: how we keep boundaries, what permission we have to cross boundaries, and how we do so.

A. B. Yehoshua

permission boundaries crosses

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.

A. B. Yehoshua

process complicated writing

One of the dreams of Zionism was to be a bridge. Instead, we are creating exclusion between the East and the West instead of creating bridges; we are contributing to the conflict between East and West by our stupid desire to have more.

A. B. Yehoshua

bridges stupid dream

The weapon of suicide bombing is so desperate that you aren't even left with the possibility of taking revenge or punishing anyone; the terrorist is killed along with his victims, his blood mixing with theirs

A. B. Yehoshua

revenge suicide blood

So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, theres never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on.

A. B. Yehoshua

judging truth past

Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe.

A. B. Yehoshua

literature gold intimate-relationships

I don't think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing - even in part - our capacity to contribute to other peoples.

A. B. Yehoshua

claims losing thinking

We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

A. B. Yehoshua

soldier honor men

The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people.

A. B. Yehoshua

identity experts people

We must see what in the Israeli identity - in the Israeli - we can give to other people rather than speaking so often of taking, expanding territory.

A. B. Yehoshua

identity giving people

Since ideology is part of the human personality, it deserves a place in the kingdom of eternal truths.

A. B. Yehoshua

ideology personality kingdoms

This is why I am a Zionist: because Diaspora leads to hatred and the Holocaust.

A. B. Yehoshua

why i-am holocaust hatred

Jerusalem doesn't belong only to Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews, but to the world.

A. B. Yehoshua

belong only jerusalem world

I think about the Arabs not as enemies but as cousins. Even when we are in a fierce conflict with them, they are more of a kind of family - with all the problems of a family. We have to live with them.

A. B. Yehoshua

problems conflict fierce family

I am a serious reader, and I read slowly.

A. B. Yehoshua

slowly read i-am serious

I deeply respect literature and expect to gain insight from a book and to identify emotionally with its characters. I therefore avoid reading suspense novels or science fiction.

A. B. Yehoshua

respect reading science book

The literary trappings and moralizing of science fiction I find insufficiently compelling.

A. B. Yehoshua

find science-fiction science fiction

I only published my first novel at the age of 40. Till then, I wrote short stories.

A. B. Yehoshua

short only first age

Israelis are the total Jews.

A. B. Yehoshua

israelis jews total