Leon Uris Quotes

Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.

Both of them had a sad desperation about them. Lord, André thought, why do young lovers dote on misery? How nice to be an aging lover and when you walk into the room meet someone who is happy and loves in an uncomplicated way. Young people demand tragedy. He had had that with Nicole. Love for the young is a waste and a mess.

I was a terrible English student.

Rule ... " "Ours not

You usually dont know what you are going to write about so you go to the places and talk to the people who were identified with the events.

If you're lucky enough to fall in love, that's one thing. Otherwise all that was ever truly beautiful to me was boyhood. It's the meal we sup on for the rest of our lives. Love puts the icing on life. But if you don't find it ... you must call on your childhood memories over and over till you do.

So writing is a very, very difficult position to obtain ... and retain.

Value time!!! It's only when we lack time for ourselves that we start valuing it.

The complete novelist would come into the world with a catalog of qualities like this. He would own the concentration of a Trappist monk, the organizational ability of a Prussian field marshal, the insight into human relations of a Viennese psychologist, the discipline of a man who prints the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin, the exquisite sense of timing of an Olympic gymnast, and by the way, a natural instinct and flair for exceptional use of language.

I've not been right for any man or myself since I met you.

For an instant he was able to cross the line and understand this strange loyalty of Jew to Jew. Those Jews who lived free in England were only there due to some quirk of fate instead of Aushwitz and every Jew knew that genocide could have happened to his own family except for that quirk of fate.
Yet, as time stood suspended, Gilray was all gentiles who never quite understood Jews. He could befriend them, work with them, but never totally understand them. He was all white men who could never quite understand black men and all black men who could never quite understand whites. He was all normal men who could tolerate or even defend homosexuals ... but never fully understand them.
There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different.

Anything to declare? the customs inspector said."Two pound of uncut heroin and a manual of pornographic art," Mark answered, looking about for Kity. All Americans are comedians, the inspector thought, as he passed Parker through. A government tourist hostess approached him."Are you Mr. Mark Parker?""Guilty.

The first thing you have to do is get immersed in the project, organizing yourself, knowing what you are going after and not going after.

Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love.

Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.

The Yishuv covered itself with glory. Just as in World War I the British glorified the Arab revolt - so they tried to hide the efforts of the Yishuv in World War II. No country gave with so much vitality to the war. But the British Government did not want the Jews to use this as a bargaining point for their homeland aspirations later on. Whitehall and Chatham House kept the Yishuv's war effort one of the best secrets of the war.

God figured out when he separated us from the rest of the creatures that if we have the power to reason and justify and make decisions, then we are going to make a lot of mistakes passing through. Big, big, big mistakes. God understood that, then gave us the ultimate human power, the power of redemption.

Truth is what people want to believe and nothing more.

The ability of a person to atone has always been the most remarkable of human features.

France was the first country in Europe to grant Jews the full rights of citizenship without qualification.

In the end, what would Michele's life be? A

Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.

This was what I came to found. The conquest of loneliness was the missing link that was one day going to make a decent novelist out of me. If you are out here and cannot close off the loves and hates of all that back there in the real world the memories will overtake you and swamp you and wilt your tenacity. Tenacity stamina ... close off to everything and everyone but your writing. That s the bloody price. I don t know maybe it's some kind of ultimate selfishness. Maybe it's part of the killer instinct. Unless you can stash away and bury thoughts of your greatest love you cannot sustain the kind of concentration that breaks most men trying to write a book over a three or four year period.

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

To be homeward bound, no matter what tragic memories you have harbored, is unlike any voyage a man can ever make.

Until a man is struck in his own face he does not want to believe the attack on his brother concerns him.

Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel.

Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he's either naive or insane.

You aren't a true husband/man until you've done the work of a wife/women

A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith faith in yourself won't hurt a thing. All the bastards in the world will snicker and sneer because they haven't the talent to zip up their flies by themselves. To hell with them, particularly the critics. Stand in there, son, no matter how badly you are battered and hurt.

A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter ... To me it is utterly basic, yet it seems like it's a great secret.

You can lie to your wife or your boss, but you cannot lie to your typewriter. Sooner or later you must reveal your true self in your pages.

Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?

After all, the only thing that is going to save mankind is if enough people live their lives for something or someone other than themselves.

And that is where I have failed you, Ari. You see, I would have crawled to your mother a million times. I would crawl to her because I need her in order to live. She is my strength. God help me, Ari, I have been a party to the creation of a breed of men and women so hard they refuse to know the meaning of tears and humility.

One of the cheapest commodities in the world is unfulfilled genius. All of us want to be known as a unique individual, the one who broke out of the pack. So, you offer yourself up as a sacrifice and what you're afraid of is losing and being thrown back into the pack. One question taunts you. Do you want to have, or do you want to be?

every day with you? Come on

You can try to reach an audience, but you just write what comes out of you and you just hope that it is accepted. You do not write specifically to a generation.

My greatest accomplishment is Exodus. It changed a lot of peoples lives, it changed the conception of the Jewish people in the international scene.

I never got over the horror of watching their graduation ceremonies, performed before their parents. After a demonstration of 'military prowess' and personal courage the ceremony ended with their biting off the heads of snakes. As the blood dripped down their chins, they roasted the dead animals for a victory feast. Other schools had the children strangle puppies and drink their blood.

Pride is a fool's fortress

Look at me, man, look at me and tell me I don't know what I'm about. I'm Conor Larkin. I'm an Irishman and I've had enough.

Usually a good part of the people trying it end up not making it.

The only time we can attract a crowd is for some pilgrimage up some god-damned holy mountain to chase the snakes and banshees out of the country.

Huxley: "Tell me something Bryce, do you know the difference between a Jersey, a Guernsey, a Holstein, and an Ayershire?"
Bryce: "No."
Huxley: "Seabags Brown does."
Bryce: "I don't see what that has to do..."
Huxley: "What do you know about Gaelic history?"
Bryce: "Not much."
Huxley: "Then why don't you sit down one day with Gunner McQuade. He is an expert. Speaks the language, too."
Bryce: "I don't..."
Huxley: " What do you know about astronomy?"
Bryce: "A little."
Huxley: "Discuss it with Wellman, he held a fellowship."
Bryce: "This is most puzzling."
Huxley: "What about Homer, ever read Homer?"
Bryce: "Of course I've read Homer."
Huxley: "In the original Greek?"
Bryce: "No"
Huxley: "Then chat with Pfc. Hodgkiss. Loves to read the ancient Greek."
Bryce: "Would you kindly get to the point?"
Huxley: "The point is this, Bryce. What makes you think you are so goddam superior? Who gave you the bright idea that you had a corner on the world's knowledge? There are privates in this battalion who can piss more brains down a slit trench then you'll ever have. You're the most pretentious, egotistical individual I've ever encountered. Your superiority complex reeks. I've seen the way you treat men, like a big strutting peacock. Why, you've had them do everything but wipe your ass.

President Truman had a little sign on his desk. I've always admired its philosophy. It read: THE BUCK STOPS HERE. I've envied certain people, too, the great majority of my colleagues whose sole mission in life is to attain the goal of mediocrity. They sail into a safe harbor, button up and conveniently and quietly sort their paper clips, avoiding responsibility and decisions. I can't explain, Nicole, why I was singled out and am unable to avoid conflict, but I can't run or plug my ears or close my eyes or turn my back. I often envy those who can.

All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.

It all begins and ends in the same place, doesn't it? Conor and me in Ballyutogue. We all come home eventually.

All men have a measure of cowardice in them. I learned that love of one's mates can overcome your fears. I learned that every survivor of this horror must try to live a good life because he lives for many men.

Life hinges on many factors we cannot control. Two of the most important factors, we can control. We can manage our relationships-and what is life but a series of relationships?-and we can correct our mistakes, here on earth within our life span.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.

In order to be a good writer, you've got to be a bad boss. Self-discipline and stamina are the two major arms in a writer's arsenal.

To me, a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the fight for survival of the human race. He must stay at his post in the thick of fire to serve the cause of mankind.

and the righteous cowed and the evil grew bold.

In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to.

Subjugate the Arab world. Dr. Weizmann and the Zionists felt

I am very proud of this work because it is more about the meaning of the Easter Rising and its relationship to what this whole century has been about, people liberating themselves, freeing themselves.