Words create conceptions and self-conceptions and ultimately nations. They can start and stop wars. They can would and heal. Choosing words carefully is a moral responsibility. Amos Oz More Quotes by Amos Oz More Quotes From Amos Oz I would love to leave my children and grandchildren a nicer world than the one I am going to leave them. But bearing in mind that I was born in the world of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the legacy I leave them might not be as terrible as the legacy my parents and grandparents left to me. Amos Oz grandparent mind children My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing. I write in words. I don write in sounds or in shapes or in flavors. I write in words. And my words are Hebrew words. Amos Oz musical important writing 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 lucky reading stories 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. This is my business as a novelist. It is not about positions and ideas. Amos Oz people ideas moving I work in Hebrew. Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages. Not now, for the last three thousand years, Hebrew has been penetrated and fertilized by ancient Semitic languages - by Aramaic, by Greek, by Latin, by Arabic, by Yiddish, by Latino, by German, by Russian, by English, I could go on and on. It's very much like English. The English language took in many many fertilizations, many many genes, from other languages, from foreign languages - Latin, French, Nordic languages, German, Scandinavian languages. Every language has influences and is an influence. Amos Oz language greek latin Over 70 years after Hitler, a German chancellor, a woman, is the leader of the free world. So don't talk to me about irrevocable. Amos Oz leader world years The alternative to fanaticism and to death is not some miraculous realization that someone has been wrong and he has to apologize. No, the answer to fanaticism and to death is curiosity and compromise and concession. Amos Oz alternatives curiosity realization One of the things I wanted to introduce in The Same Sea beyond transcending the conflict, is the fact that deep down below all our secrets are the same. Amos Oz secret sea facts The Jews have a powerful ally, America, but they do not really have a bigger family in the same way that there is a European family or an Arab-Muslim family. People who fail to understand this ambivalence will never understand this country. They will not be able to understand how Netanyahu could win the last election by saying the Iranians are coming, Islamic State (IS) is coming, the Arabs are coming, and the whole world hates us anyway. Amos Oz powerful hate country The kibbutz way of life is not for everyone. It is meant for people who are not in the business of working harder than they should be working, in order to make more money than they need, in order to buy things they don't really want, in order to impress people they don't really like. Amos Oz order people needs My dream for Israel is peace, external and internal peace. I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself. Amos Oz neighbor dream Never cut loose from your longings. Amos Oz longing cutting desire When people have peace, they hate it and long for excitement, and when they have excitement, they want peace. Amos Oz hate long people 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 eight israel religious But for 30 years, Orthodox leaders have tipped the balance between hawks and doves, and have been in a position to determine who forms a coalition and who runs the country. Amos Oz running country years In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather. Amos Oz sharon bird way I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music. Amos Oz pieces political sea Recently with IS and Islamist fanaticism, it has become easy for the Israeli government to simply push the Palestinian struggle for self-determination into the same ranks as these fundamentalist movements. Amos Oz government determination struggle Imagination needs food like every dog and every cat and every bird and every fish. Amos Oz cat imagination dog On my parents scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered. Amos Oz scales western parent
