I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation. A. B. Yehoshua More Quotes by A. B. Yehoshua More Quotes From A. B. Yehoshua 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 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 you man identity history 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
