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Democracy in many parts of the world is undergoing a very deep crisis. Politics is becoming a branch of the entertainment industry. People vote not for the best leader, but for the funniest candidate.

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
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Democracy
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More quotes by Amos Oz

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I wrote a novel about Israelis who live their own lives on the slope of a volcano. Near a volcano one still falls in love, one still gets jealous, one still wants a promotion, one still gossips.
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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A long war is degenerating - it ruins the mind and the soul and psyche of individuals and nations.
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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Israel has obviously not liberated the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank. We have occupied them, but we have not liberated them.
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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Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words.
Amos Oz
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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
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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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I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.
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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Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.
Amos Oz
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I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.
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.
Amos Oz
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I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies. I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another. I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.
Amos Oz
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I think there are one or two things similar in Elizabethan English and contemporary Hebrew. This is not to say that every one of us Israeli writers is a William Shakespeare, but there is a certain similarity to Elizabethan English.
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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I recommend the art of slow reading.
Amos Oz
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Almost without exception, my novels are rooted in Israel because that's the place I know well.
Amos Oz
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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