Quotes from Leon Uris

Era corriente que los cráneos bien formados fueran recuperados y vendidos a los guardias alemanes, que los utilizaban como pisapapeles.

1920 was that the Russians were Asians. Western culture had been imported into only a few of the larger cities. Most of Russia and the other captive states that comprised the Soviet Union simply did not think or act like the West.

But the Russians have oriental patience. They waited a decade for political recognition and they will wait a century to achieve the ultimate aim. A stalemate for a decade does not matter, for the machinery is always at work, always plodding on. They are convinced that their final victory is inevitable. The Russian people knew that all invasions from Napoleon to Hitler had come from the West.

Every German must face the past before he can face the future.

I was a terrible English student.

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.

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

I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

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.

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

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

Writing, basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.

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.

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.

My first book was rejected nine times. It turned out to be a best seller, Battle Cry? in 1953.

It is extremely important to know what you don't want to find.

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.

Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it, don't become a writer.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.