Quotes from Amos Oz

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

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

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.

Healing begins with you're saying these simple words to your adversary, yes, to your enemy: "You're hurting, I know. I'm hurting, too. Let's try to find a way".

L'amore è una faccenda intima strana e piena di contraddizioni, visto che non di rado amiamo qualcuno solo perchè amiamo noi stessi, per egoismo, avidità, desiderio fisico, brama di dominare l'oggetto d'amore e asservirlo; o al contrario, per desiderio di asservirci e essere dominati dal nostro amante, e in fondo l'amore assomiglia all'odio e gli è più prossimo di quanto non si pensi normalmente.

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.

One of the things I wanted to introduce in The Same Sea beyond transcending the conflict, is the fact that deep down below all our secrets are the same.

Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It's a conflict between two victims.

The fanatic is always in a hurry to fall on your neck to save you, because he loves you. He loves you unconditionally. But, conversely, he might grab you and strangle you if he discovers that you are beyond redemption. Lost. And if that is the case, he is obliged to hate you and rid the world of you.

At the very least literature should not preen itself on mocking us and picking at our wounds, as modern writers in our days do ad nauseam. All they can write is satire, irony, parody (including self-parody), vicious sarcasm, all steeped in malice.

You cannot write without looking behind you; like Lot's wife. And in doing so you turn yourself and them into blocks of salt.

He wrote more or less the same way as he dreamed or masturbated: a mixture of compulsion, enthusiasm, despair, disgust, and wretchedness. And in those days he also had an insatiable curiosity to try to understand why people hurt each other, and themselves, without meaning to at all.