Amos Oz
Amos Oz
Amos Ozis an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. He is regarded as Israel's most famous living author...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth4 May 1939
CountryIsrael
tragedy definitions clash
Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right.
israel iran earthquakes
It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.
wall doors sitting
Actually, who hasn't been through the ghastly experience of sitting in front of a blank page, with its toothless mouth grinning at you: Go ahead, let's see you lay a finger on me? A blank page is actually a whitewashed wall with no door and no window. Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant.
loneliness self hands
… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.
years two people
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.
falling-in-love jealous volcanoes
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.
bird way sharon
In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.
party gaps labor
The actual gap between Labor, Likud and the new central party is microscopic.
religious israel eight
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.
order people want
The kibbutz way of life is not for everyone. It is meant for people who are not in the business of working harder than they should be working, in order to make more money than they need, in order to buy things they don't really want, in order to impress people they don't really like.
tiny born lows
I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.
cutting desire longing
Never cut loose from your longings.
cutting longing loses
Do not cut lose from your longings - for what are we without our longings?
traitor ifs diets
If you change your diet, someone will call you a traitor.