Quotes by Yehuda Amichai

“I believe with perfect faith that at this very momentmillions of human beings are standing at crossroadsand intersections, in jungles and deserts,showing each other where to turn, what the right wa...”

“Now and then, I remember you in timesUnbelievable. And in places not made for memoryBut for the transient, the passing that does not remain.”

“Try to remember some details. For the worldis filled with people who were torn from their sleepwith no one to mend the tear,and unlike wild beasts they liveeach in his lonely hiding place and they ...”

“A flock of sheep near the airport or a high voltage generator beside the orchard: these combinations open up my life like a wound, but they also heal it. That's why my feelings always come in twos.”

“I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated childr...”

“If one can pursue two courses simultaneously, why not a dozen? An infinite number? It verges on a sort of science fiction. But I have always been fascinated by doubles, split personalities, and alt...”

“I am a poet largely because poetry verges closely on mythic power...The fool is the one who insists on his truth to the exclusion of others. And after all, truth, beauty, the very meaning of words-...”

“America is, after all, the only Jewish community outside of Israel that is surviving. British Jewry is stagnant, dying. Then there are the French, of course, but in the Diaspora only in America is ...”

“It could be fairly said that I disagree with the old, false romanticism about Judaism. In practice, Orthodox Judaism can keep you busy nearly all of the time with things you should be doing. Keeps ...”

“I myself tell people that Israel is the only place that Jews can live where they don't have always to be thinking about being Jewish. For, as you are aware, the practice of Judaism is, in practice,...”

“When I was eighteen, I joined the British army for four years. I served in Egypt and the western desert: Palestinian [Jewish!] units were kept distant from combat zones. After that came a year in t...”

“Here in Israel, of course, every generation backs away from its parents. Rebels against the old. That has always been the case, and not here alone. Take, for example, Dylan Thomas, now largely igno...”

“I've spoken a few times at Peace Now rallies. I am generally against the right wing taking over. But I think I exert more influence, such as it is, through my poems than I would by espousing public...”

“The Ashkenazic West is more ideological; the Sephardim are, I think, more easy, more human. They don't disown their own because of a football game on Shabbat. Of course I am not talking about Shas;...”

“I am opposed to our keeping all of the West Bank. It's plain that the time has not yet come for Arabs and Jews to be together. All that I really want is to live in a Jewish State. It's a remarkable...”

“Yehuda Amichai and Haim Gouri, both poets, also wrote memorable fiction.”

“Amichai’s poems about Jerusalem give us Jerusalemites the ability to lead an almost normal life in a place that always seems on the verge of collapse from the weight of so much history and holiness.”