Amos Oz Quotes

English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

It is a fact that the classics of Yiddish literature are also the classics of the modern Hebrew literature.

I found cause to wonder upon what ground the English accuse Americans of corrupting the language by introducing slang words. I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks' stay in London than in my whole "tenderloin" life in New York. But I suppose the English feel that the language is theirs, and that they may do with it as they please without at the same time allowing that privilege to others.

Think about Elizabethan English, where the entire English language behaved pretty much like molten lava, like a volcano in mid-eruption. Modern Hebrew has some things in common with Elizabethan English. It is being reshaped and it's expanding very rapidly in various directions.

Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.

The revival of Hebrew, as a spoken language, is a fascinating story, which I'm afraid I cannot squeeze into a few sentences. But, let me give you a clue. Think about Elizabethan English, where the entire English language behaved pretty much like molten lava, like a volcano in mid-eruption. Modern Hebrew has some things in common with Elizabethan English. It is being reshaped and it's expanding very rapidly in various directions. 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.

I think there's as much profundity and wisdom in Shakespeare, more so in fact, than those in the Bible.

I think the greatest truths, the ones that you find in every culture that has any sort of history of reflection of writing, the greatest truth is that there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's the way Shakespeare put it. But you get basically the same idea from Buddha, from the Bhagavad Gita in India, and from the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome.

I want to diversify a bit. I don't wanna throw myself into another big blockbuster or another big franchise anytime soon. So smaller films, just small little interesting parts, I think I'd even like to play around with some really good supporting roles and then develop into - I don't know just like feel my way into it a bit more. I don't know, I'd love to try some theater. That's my other thing. I'd love to do some Shakespeare.

There are a few of the authors that I think have made a great big impact on my life. The way I used to do things when I was younger was more about being outrageous, and there was a lot of ego involved in that.

My accent has changed my whole life. When I was younger it was very Nigerian, then when we went to England it was very British.

I think working on Shakespeare was a big part of my time at drama school. I'm so glad that I got to know Shakespeare and got a chance to play great parts in Shakespeare, because it really teaches you - or taught me, anyway - everything.

All good writers inspire me as I have never thought I was any good. As far as a writer who made me think I could do it, it was Henry Miller. Not because I thought he was so simple that I reckoned I could pull it off as well, but it was his freedom and guts that really moved me to want to write all the time.

I felt it [Shakespeare's Coriolanus] is sort of an examination of our dysfunction as a nationalistic, tribal entities. I think the world is rocking and cracking open in weird and worrying places. And I think Coriolanus, the play, reflected that.

As a linguist, I don't think of Ada as a big language. Now, English and Japanese, those are big languages. Ada is just a medium-sized language.

The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is a tool of magic.

A lot of people have a fear of Shakespeare. Even actors do. People are like, "Oh, I won't go and see Shakespeare because the language is so hard," but it is. When you read it on the page, you go, "What?! What does that mean?!" If you go to a Shakespeare play and you've never been, you sit there and go, "I'm an idiot! I don't get it!"

I'm being probably naïve, but I would like to think that once something moves you and you have an emotional involvement with it, and you see some relevance in it to your own life, then it's a little bit harder, maybe, to look at the people that produced it as being just exotic others that don't have any connection to you or relevance to you.

I am haunted by the ghost of my father, I think that should allow me to quote Hamlet as much as I please.

You start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few good jokes.

Shakespeare, who never could think up a plot by himself, found this one [Macbeth] in Holinshed's Chronicles, changing it just enough so that no one would recognize the source. He didn't count on the resourcefulness of modern scholars, who have to discover things like this to become associate professors.

I think the best writers are voracious readers who pick up the cadences and the feel of narration through a number of different books. And you begin by maybe copying the style of writers that really knocked you out.

I know what it means to be Jewish, and I don't think someone who wasn't Jewish would really understand.

It's hard to think that say Shakespeare could have written "The Tempest" when he was young. It seems to be reflective work or retrospective work.

Language does our thinking for us.