Quotes from Amos Oz

I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples - the Israeli people and the Palestinian people - are ahead of their leaderships.

I am an old man and I have seen things get revoked. Things which looked very irrevocable.

The Old Testament is full of poetry, prophecies, chronicles, documentations, storytelling, fairytales.

The [political] left are people with an imagination and the right are those without an imagination.

Jesus was born a Jew, and he died a Jew. It never occurred to him to establish a new religion. He never crossed himself: he had no reason to. He never set one foot in a church. He went to synagogue.

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.

But for 30 years, Orthodox leaders have tipped the balance between hawks and doves, and have been in a position to determine who forms a coalition and who runs the country.

I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.

And in this respect, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim.

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.

If you steal from one book you are condemned as a plagiarist, but if you steal from ten books you are considered a scholar, and if you steal from thirty or forty books, a distinguished scholar.

When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner on an out-of-the-way library somehwere in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.

The best way to know the soul of another country is to read its literature.

Love is a curious mixture of opposites, a blend of extreme selfishness and total devotion. A paradox! Besides which, love, everybody is always talking about love, love, but love isn't something you choose, you catch it like a disease, you get trapped in it, like a disaster.

A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.

I now believe that all journeys are ridiculous: the only journey from which you don't always come back empty-handed is the journey inside yourself.

Facts have a tendency to obscure the truth.

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.

If you have no more tears left to weep, then don't weep. Laugh.

The fact is that all the power in the world cannot transform someone who hates you into someone who likes you. It can turn a foe into a slave, but not into a friend. All the power in the world cannot transform a fanatic into an enlightened man. All the power in the world cannot transform someone thirsting for vengeance into a lover.

The whole of reality was just a vain attempt to imitate the world of words.

And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.

There is no freedom about this: the world gives, and you just take what you're given, with no opportunity to choose.

Feelings are just a fire in a field of stubble: it burns for a moment, and then all that's left is soot and ashes. Do you know what the main thing is—the thing a woman should look for in her man? She should look for a quality that's not at all exciting but that's rarer than gold: decency.