“Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“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.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Like so many creative men of his school he was hounded by an incessant restlessness.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Let me tell you something, man. I sat here at this desk during the war as one report after another of Arab sellouts came in. The Egyptian Chief of Staff selling secrets to the Germans; Cairo all decked out to welcome Rommel as their liberator; the Iraqis going to the Germans; the Syrians going to the Germans; the Mufti of Jerusalem a Nazi agent. I could go on for hours. You must look at Whitehall’s side of this, Bruce. We can’t risk losing our prestige and our hold on the entire Middle East over a few thousand Jews.” Sutherland sighed. “And this is our most tragic mistake of all, Sir Clarence. We are going to lose the Middle East despite it.” “You are all wound up, Bruce.” “There is a right and a wrong, you know.” General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne smiled slightly and shook his head sadly. “I have learned very little in my years, Bruce, but one thing I have learned. Foreign policies of this, or any other, country are not based on right and wrong. Right and wrong? It is not for you and me to argue the right or the wrong of this question. The only kingdom that runs on righteousness is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdoms of the earth run on oil. The Arabs have oil.” Bruce Sutherland was silent. Then he nodded. “Only the kingdom of heaven runs on righteousness,”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“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.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“With so much utter insanity all about, a man had to keep a clear head. Clement reckoned a scientist could actually chart the course of human events as one would chart the tides and waves of the sea. There were waves of emotion and hate and waves of complete unreason. They’d reach a peak and fall to nothingness. All mankind lived in this sea except for a few who perched on islands so high and dry they remained always out of the reach of the mainstream of life. A university, Johann Clement reasoned, was such an island, such a sanctuary.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Karen Hansen Clement sank deep in melancholy. She heard till she could hear no more. She saw until she could see no more. She was exhausted and confused, and the will to go on was being drained from her blood. Then, as so often happens when one reaches the end of the line, there was a turning upward and she emerged into the light. It”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“At the edge of the sea he took her to the ruins of the synagogue of Capernaum. Here, Jesus walked and taught and healed. Words came to Kitty’s mind that she thought she had forgotten. Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee and saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea ... And they went into Capernaum and straight away on the Sabbath He entered into the synagogue and taught. It was”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Bruce, these Jews escaping from Europe have posed quite a problem. They are simply flooding Palestine. Frankly, the Arabs are getting quite upset about the numbers getting into the mandate. We here have decided to set up detention camps on Cyprus to contain these people—at least as a temporary measure until Whitehall decides what we are going to do with the Palestine mandate.” “I see,” Sutherland said softly.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“From there Ari took her to the church which marked the place of the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes a short distance from Capernaum. The floor of the church held a Byzantine mosaic depicting cormorants and herons and ducks and other wild birds which still inhabited the lake. And then they moved on to the Mount of Beatitudes to a little chapel on the hill where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. These were His words spoken from this place. As she”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“At the Suez Canal, the British became alarmed at the Egyptian debacle and the possibility of Israeli penetration near the canal. They demanded that the Jews stop or face the British Army. In warning, the British sent Spitfire fighters into the sky to gun the Israelis. It seemed only fitting somehow that the last shots of the War of Liberation were against the British. The Israeli Air Force brought down six British fighter planes. Then Israel yielded to international pressure by letting the Egyptians escape. The”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Polish prisoner Dr. Wladislaw Dering performed castrations and ovariectomies ordered by his German masters as part of their insane program to find a way to sterilize the entire Jewish race.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Their pledge, in fact, came close to later communal farming ideas. The communal farm was not born of social or political idealism. It was based on the necessities of survival; there was no other way.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Shoshanna, the first kibbutz in Palestine, seemed to be the long-awaited answer for Zionism.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Jossi had been slow in agreeing with Ben Yehuda and the others. Hebrew had to be revived. If the desire for national identity was great enough a dead language could be brought back. But Sarah was set in her ways. Yiddish was what she spoke and what her mother had spoken. She had no intention of becoming a scholar so late in life.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Almost everything that Jesus taught, all His ideas, had been set down before in the Old Testament. Then came the largest riddle of all. If Jesus were to return to the earth she was certain He would go to a synagogue rather than a church. Why could people worship Jesus and hate His people?”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Johann Clement watched the blows fall. First there had been wild talk and then printed accusations and insinuations. Then came a boycott of Jewish business and professional people, then the public humiliations: beatings and beard pullings. Then came the night terror of the Brown Shirts. Then came the concentration camps. Gestapo, SS, SD, KRIPO, RSHA. Soon every family in Germany was under Nazi scrutiny, and the grip of tyranny tightened until the last croak of defiance strangled and died.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“La actitud de los árabes ha llegado a extremos injustificables. Se niegan a sentarse a la misma mesa que los judíos, a menos que se acepten de antemano las condiciones previas que quieren imponer.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“What could be more fortunate for the German propaganda machine than to be able to pump the theme that the Jews of Palestine were stealing the Arab lands just as they had tried to steal Germany. Jew hating and British imperialism—what music to the Mufti’s ears! The”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“France was the first country in Europe to grant Jews the full rights of citizenship without qualification.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“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.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Habían arrancado el alambre de espino, las cámaras y los hornos crematorios habían desaparecido, pero los recuerdos no le abandonarían nunca.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“subjugate the Arab world. Dr. Weizmann and the Zionists felt”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Acudieron de setenta y cuatro naciones diferentes. Los dispersados, los exiliados, los repudiados se congregaban en el único rincón de la Tierra donde la palabra «judío» no era un insulto.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Desde el momento en que pisaban el suelo de Israel, aquellos que habían vivido despreciados, pisoteados, disfrutaban de una libertad y una consideración humana que la mayoría jamás habían conocido, y verse iguales a sus semejantes les infundía un valor y una decisión que no tenían equivalente en toda la historia de la humanidad.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Aquel pueblo avanzaba con una decisión que arrastraba consigo todas las simpatías del mundo civilizado. La joven Israel se alzaba como un faro para la humanidad, demostrando cuánto se podía conseguir con fuerza de voluntad y amor.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“El odio a los judíos es como una enfermedad incurable. Bajo determinadas condiciones democráticas, acaso no florezca bien. Bajo otras condiciones, es posible incluso que parezca que muere; pero jamás desaparece del todo, ni aun en el clima ideal.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“sobre la estela de este arrebato, la generación joven y curtida de los sabras dio lugar a otra generación que no había de saber jamás lo que era verse humillado por haber nacido judío.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“And in your deranged mind, what do you think the lesson of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ is?” Alex challenged him. “Easy,” Conner said. “Lock your doors! Robbers come in all shapes and sizes. Even curly-haired little girls can’t be trusted.” Alex grunted again and crossed her arms.”
― Chris Colfer, quote from The Wishing Spell
“The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.”
― Shirley Jackson, quote from The Lottery and Other Stories
“Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting.”
― Lois Lowry, quote from Gathering Blue
“And though there were no children playing, no doves, no blue-shadowed roof tiles, I felt that the town was alive. And that if I heard only silence, it was because I was not accustomed to silence - maybe because my head was still filled with sounds and voices.”
― Juan Rulfo, quote from Pedro Páramo
“Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire.
He's constantly drawing you in. And you're constantly stepping too close. And you know it's not good--that there is no good--that there's absolutely nothing that can ever come of it.
But you do it anyway.
And then...
Well. Then you burn.”
― Rainbow Rowell, quote from Carry On
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.