Almost without exception, my novels are rooted in Israel because that's the place I know well. Amos Oz More Quotes by Amos Oz More Quotes From Amos Oz This bloody conflict has been going on for much too long. It is doing terrible things to Israelis, to Palestinians. One of the terrible things it is causing is indifference. Amos Oz indifferenceconflictlong A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops. Amos Oz mindheartpeople It is wrong to take an 18-year-old boy or girl and arm them with machine guns and make them the almighty king of some little Arab village. No young man, and no old man either, should have so much power over the life and death of so many helpless individuals. It is corrupting. It sometimes provokes desperate, savage and indiscriminate violence among the occupied. Amos Oz girlgunkings All of my novels are democracies. Amos Oz democracynovel If you steal from one book you are condemned as a plagiarist, but if you steal from ten books you are considered a scholar, and if you steal from thirty or forty books, a distinguished scholar. Amos Oz stealingacademicbook The [political] left are people with an imagination and the right are those without an imagination. Amos Oz politicalimaginationpeople Let me make it very clear: when I say compromise I do not mean capitulation. When I say compromise I definitely do not mean what Jesus Christ meant when he offered us to turn our other cheek to our enemies. Compromise means, try to meet the other somewhere half-way. And, this can only happen if the other is willing to go half-way in order to meet you. That is the very strict line between compromise and capitulation. I'm a great believer in compromises. I do not believe in capitulation. Amos Oz meanbelievejesus 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. This is not the case here. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy; it is a clash between right and right. Amos Oz guyfeelingssleep Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. Amos Oz languageliteraturefirsts Actually, who hasn't been through the ghastly experience of sitting in front of a blank page, with its toothless mouth grinning at you: Go ahead, let's see you lay a finger on me? A blank page is actually a whitewashed wall with no door and no window. Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant. Amos Oz wallmouthsdoors If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state. Amos Oz fateunhappysides Every decent man had to be against fascism, period. Amos Oz fascismperiodsmen Literature is not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words. Amos Oz analysisliteratureideas Literature may make the reader reexamine some of his or her own conventions, look at himself or herself in a different way, look at others in a different way. This goes way beyond just making statements or manifesting principles. Amos Oz differentprincipleslooks Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It's a conflict between two victims. Amos Oz twochildrenpast I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world. Amos Oz mysteriousfamilyworld Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words. Amos Oz languageliteraturemade Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right. Amos Oz wellsdefinitionstragedy It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain. Amos Oz iranisraelearthquakes … 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 lonelinessselfhands
![The [political] left are people with an imagination and the right... by Amos Oz](https://whatsmyquote.com/images/quote-medium-quote-3554777e7c43f4d1a37bf95e06faa3b7.jpg)
