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

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
Language
Firsts
First
Foremost
Belongs
Written
Literature

More quotes by Amos Oz

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I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies.
Amos Oz
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Almost every modern literary form existed in Hebrew two thousand years ago. And, yes, it existed even during the middle ages.
Amos Oz
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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
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When people have peace, they hate it and long for excitement, and when they have excitement, they want peace.
Amos Oz
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Compromise is not popular. It's not at all popular among young people who these days call themselves activists. They think compromises are dishonest, opportunistic, humiliating. Not in my vocabulary.
Amos Oz
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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
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Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago.
Amos Oz
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I know that a translation of a work of literature is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. You can do this. You can do this very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin. This will be grotesque.
Amos Oz
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I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.
Amos Oz
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The [political] left are people with an imagination and the right are those without an imagination.
Amos Oz
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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
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Literature may make the reader reexamine some of his or her own conventions, look at himself or herself in a different way, look at others in a different way. This goes way beyond just making statements or manifesting principles.
Amos Oz
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I'm a great believer in compromises. I do not believe in capitulation.
Amos Oz
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A long war is degenerating - it ruins the mind and the soul and psyche of individuals and nations.
Amos Oz
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Imagination needs food like every dog and every cat and every bird and every fish.
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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Think about Elizabethan English, where the entire English language behaved pretty much like molten lava, like a volcano in mid-eruption. Modern Hebrew has some things in common with Elizabethan English. It is being reshaped and it's expanding very rapidly in various directions.
Amos Oz
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That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.
Amos Oz
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I'm a great believer in compromise. I know it's not popular among young idealists.
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