Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Amos Oz
Age: 79 †
Born: 1939
Born: May 4
Died: 2018
Died: December 28
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Linguist
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Jerusalem
Middle East
Amos Klausner
Nations
Conception
Start
Wars
Words
Heal
War
Ultimately
Self
Create
Would
Stop
Conceptions
Responsibility
Choosing
Moral
Carefully
More quotes by Amos Oz
Literature is not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words.
Amos Oz
I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.
Amos Oz
I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as task or role when they are attached to literature. I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task. You know, gynecology has a role sex is a gift. And literature is not about sending messages.
Amos Oz
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.
Amos Oz
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
Hebrew has a system of tenses, which is, in a big way, different from the English system of tenses, probably different than any European system of tenses, which means a different sense of reality, which means a different concept of time.
Amos Oz
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.
Amos Oz
The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. All of them take place in Israel - in Jerusalem, in the desert, in the kibbutz, in small towns, in villages.
Amos Oz
The whole Zionist project was based on a whole spectrum of different and even conflicting dreams and visions.
Amos Oz
I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.
Amos Oz
We supporters of the two-state solution in Israel and Palestine are now under a fierce attack from the far right and from the far left in Israel and in Europe. If I were a paranoid, I would say that maybe the far left and the far right are coordinating a conspiracy.
Amos Oz
I write in words. I don't write in sounds or in shapes or in flavors.
Amos Oz
She had not wanted him to but had let him have his way because ever since she was a child she had generally yielded before anyone with strong willpower, especially if it was a man, not because she was naturally submissive, but because strong male willpower gave her a feeling of safety and trust, together with acceptance and a desire to give in.
Amos Oz
I don't believe in binational states. There are wonderful examples of this, prosperous multinational states: Switzerland, Switzerland and Switzerland. Everywhere else - be it Cyprus, Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, it ended in a terrible bloodbath.
Amos Oz
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
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. 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.
Amos Oz
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.
Amos Oz
I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as task or role when they are attached to literature.
Amos Oz
The English language took in many many fertilizations, many many genes, from other languages, from foreign languages - Latin, French, Nordic languages, German, Scandinavian languages.
Amos Oz
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
