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In my essays and articles I have been saying again and again that the case of Israel and Palestine, the case of Israel and the Arab world, and indeed the case of Israel and Europe, is not black and white. It's not a western movie.

Amos Oz

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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
Saying
Arab
Movie
Articles
White
Israel
Black
Indeed
World
Western
Case
Europe
Palestine
Cases
Essays

More quotes by Amos Oz

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I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task.
Amos Oz
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When I say my novels are set in Israel in the last seventy years, this entails the fact that they begin hundreds or thousands of years earlier in time. And, sometimes in very, very different places, because we all come from somewhere, especially here in Israel.
Amos Oz
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I never regard my characters, my protagonists, as personifications. It's not that I sit by my desk and I pick up a character who will be the spokesperson of the Israeli Left, another one will be the spokesperson of the Right, another one will be the spokesperson of Middle Eastern Jews, European Jews, religions Jews and so on.
Amos Oz
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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
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We lived through a relatively golden age between the end of World War II and Sept. 11, 2001.
Amos Oz
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Different musical instruments provide for different music.
Amos Oz
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My dream for Israel is peace, external and internal peace.
Amos Oz
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Literature may open a third eye in the middle of the reader's forehead.
Amos Oz
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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
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We have to carry through to the next day and hope that we will be okay tomorrow as we are today and in the meantime, enjoy life.
Amos Oz
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Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand a short story is a romance, a relationship a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.
Amos Oz
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I know one or two things about fanaticism and death, and I reject them.
Amos Oz
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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
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Don't write about that which you don't know.
Amos Oz
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Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right.
Amos Oz
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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
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I write in words. And my words are Hebrew words.
Amos Oz
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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
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Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written.
Amos Oz
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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