Quote

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

Amos Oz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Integrity
Death
Fanaticism
Idealism
Compromise
Opposite
Opposites

More quotes by Amos Oz

Image
Things can be translated, but they become different.
Amos Oz
Image
I am an old man and I have seen things get revoked. Things which looked very irrevocable.
Amos Oz
Image
I'm a great believer in compromise. I know it's not popular among young idealists.
Amos Oz
Image
Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. 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.
Amos Oz
Image
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.
Amos Oz
Image
Do not cut lose from your longings - for what are we without our longings?
Amos Oz
Image
The State of the Jews was not a title of a country. It was a title of a futuristic novel.
Amos Oz
Image
Almost without exception, my novels are rooted in Israel because that's the place I know well.
Amos Oz
Image
Don't write about that which you don't know.
Amos Oz
Image
Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.
Amos Oz
Image
Now, Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is not so much a testimony about the failures of Israel. No, it is a testimony about the nature of dreams.
Amos Oz
Image
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
Image
On my parents scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered.
Amos Oz
Image
Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.
Amos Oz
Image
Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.
Amos Oz
Image
All my novels are rooted in their time and in their place.
Amos Oz
Image
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
Image
Donald Trump basically said: One state, two states, do whatever you like. I do not think this was a serious statement of American policy. This was him shrugging his shoulders and saying: Who cares about it. I think he doesn't even have the faintest idea of what he wants to do in the Middle East.
Amos Oz
Image
All my novels are rooted in their time and in their place. The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. Almost without exception, my novels are rooted in Israel because that's the place I know well. And, that's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well. Don't write about that which you don't know.
Amos Oz
Image
Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words. It's not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words. 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.
Amos Oz