Amos Oz Quotes

We all begin much much much earlier. In fact, every one of us - every nation, every individual begins hundreds, perhaps thousands of years prior to the date that appears in the passport.

If people are pro-Israel, they are pro-Israel one-hundred-and-twenty percent. If they are anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian, they tend to be pro-Palestinian one-hundred-and-twenty percent.

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

I don't write novels about expeditions to the planet Mars because I haven't been there and I don't know anything about it.

Don't write about that which you don't know.

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.

Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written.

I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task.

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.

Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words.

Literature is not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words.

On my parents scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.

There is a document in every novel in the world. Even in the most fantastic novel, even in science fiction, there is a documentary side. But, this side is not the crux of the matter.

Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago.

Never cut loose from your longings.

In fact, every one of us - every nation, every individual begins hundreds, perhaps thousands of years prior to the date that appears in the passport.

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

No human being really begins on the day which appears in the passport as their date of birth. We all begin much much much earlier.

That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.

All my novels are rooted in their time and in their place.

I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies.

I don't think a decent person has to choose between being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. I think you have to be pro-Peace.

Literature is about telling stories.

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

Everybody comes from somewhere.

Do not cut lose from your longings - for what are we without our longings?

Out there, in the world, all the walls were covered with graffiti: "Yids, go back to Palestine," so we came back to Palestine, and now the worldatlarge shouts at us: "Yids, get out of Palestine."

The battlefield is first and foremost horrible stenches, not sights, not sounds, but stenches. They don't travel well into literature.

We lived through a relatively golden age between the end of World War II and Sept. 11, 2001.

Israel has obviously not liberated the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank. We have occupied them, but we have not liberated them.

A long war is degenerating - it ruins the mind and the soul and psyche of individuals and nations.

My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing.

Universally, not only in Israel, people want to feel good about themselves. We all want to feel good to some extent.

Every language has influences and is an influence.

Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.

Things can be translated, but they become different.

There are certain concepts, which exist in english, and are unthinkable, untranslatable into Hebrew and vice versa.

I'm a great believer in compromise. I know it's not popular among young idealists.

ll our tongues and cultures are constant shoplifters" from other tongues and cultures.