Leon Uris Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

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

Leon Uris
Too many writers start with a good idea and carry it through the first chapters, then fall apart because they had no idea where the top of the mountain was in the first place.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different.

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

Leon Uris
I was tough. I used everything to my advantage. I could be very ruthless.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
There's a curse on me as there's a curse on the Larkin name. The curse comes back, again and again, to taunt me! Ronan! Kilty! Tomas! And now me! What are the Irish among men? Are we lepers? Are we a blight? Will there ever be an end to our tears?

Leon Uris
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?

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get made and stay mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
Today a great shot for freedom was heard. I think it stands a chance of being heard forever. It marks a turning point in the history of the Jewish people. The beginning of the return to a status of dignity we have not known for two thousand years. Yes, today was the first step back. My battle is done.

Leon Uris
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.

Leon Uris
A soldier has one item that cannot be neglected. His feet. They are his wheels, his mechanised warfare.

Leon Uris
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.

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

Leon Uris