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" Every Russian emperor from Peter the Great to Stalin and Putin knows a leader and his security agencies must never be parted. His safety depends on their slavish devotion. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Security

Safety

Never

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" I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Write

Always

History

" In 1918, a police chief of Jerusalem was a Montefiore. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Chief

Police

Jerusalem

" When we were in school, we were told that Stalin was a madman who got control of Europe, which teaches you nothing. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Nothing

School

You

" All tyrannies are virtuoso displays, over many years, of cunning, risk-taking, terror, delusion, narcissism, showmanship, and charm, distilled into a spectacle of total personal control. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Personal

Over

Narcissism

" Gay weddings will be remembered as Tony Blair's greatest achievement! "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Will

Remembered

Gay

" Stalin had 15 scenic seaside villas, some of them czarist palaces, on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia. In 2002, I visited and photographed these extraordinarily well-preserved Stalinist time capsules. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Some

Black

Sea

" Unlike monarchs, who pass power to their heirs at the moment of death to ensure the survival of the regime, tyrants must simply survive as long as possible. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Long

Death

Survival

" A reforming liberal leader in Russia is the Holy Grail of Kremlinology, but the search for one is as misguided and hopeless as that for the relic of the Last Supper. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Hopeless

Liberal

Leader

" Trump wants to be the first American tsar. With his hero worship of Putin, his admiration for the apparent omnipotence of the Kremlin, schoolboyish crush on Putin's gangster swagger and his contempt for democracy, Trump wants to rule with his family, taking decisions purely because he's right about everything like a tsar. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Family

Hero

Democracy

" Alexander II really used autocracy well to negotiate the freeing of the serfs in 1861. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Used

Really

Negotiate

" The political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Death

Leader

Long

" The Soviet Union was designed for Muscovite rule, not for division into independent republics. Yet the latter is exactly what happened in 1991 - and the Kremlin has never accepted it. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Independent

Union

Never

" I'm the last person who would end up doing something that needs meticulous compilation of facts. It's totally against my character. I live by impulse. I'm totally ill-suited to writing history books. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Writing

End

Character

" Russia's first major intervention began in 1768, when Catherine the Great went to war with the Ottomans, and Count Alexei Orlov, the brother of her lover Grigory, sailed the Baltic fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar to rally rebellions in the Mediterranean. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Great

First

Her

" President Yeltsin's instincts were decent: he encouraged the marketplace, the press flourished, and everything started to open - even the KGB archives. Yeltsin reburied Nicholas II. Free from Soviet anti-semitism, he surrounded himself with Jewish capitalists and advisers who returned to public life for the first time since the 1920s. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Life

Everything

Free

" Saddam Hussein admired, studied, and copied Stalin, the paragon of modern dictators. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Stalin

Modern

Dictators

" We have far too many Tudors. Henry VIII is far too over-rated. He's become the ultimate brand name, like the Marks & Spencers of a high street of British history. I'm more interested in King Herod. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Street

History

King

" As colonial puppeteer and successful restorer of Russia as imperial superpower, Mr. Putin is Stalin's consummate heir. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Colonial

Russia

Superpower

" While most know the young Stalin was a seminarian, few realize that he was also a Georgian patriot, a published romantic poet. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Romantic

Know

Patriot

" If only all straight weddings could be somehow gay-ified. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Could

Only

Somehow

" Around us, we do see attempts to delegitimize Israel, a sort of secret, hidden anti-Semitism growing in many countries, often on the right but also on the left. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Hidden

Growing

Right

" Mr. Putin presents himself as a czar - and like any czar, he fears revolution above all else. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Fears

Else

Above

" Putin regards Stalin as a great tsar; he is a great tsar. Asked who the worst tsars were, he said Nicholas II and Gorbachev. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Stalin

Who

" It was always presumptuous to expect Russia, an ancient nation-state and proud empire of distinct culture with a tradition of autocracy, to become an Anglo-American democracy overnight - just as it is naive to expect it in other parts of the world. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Culture

Always

Democracy

" There is a view of Russian exceptionalism, that they are a unique civilisation, a view right since Ivan the Terrible that Russia is a special civilisation with a special culture. Putin is pushing that now. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

View

Special

Now

" 'Daddy used to be a Georgian,' Stalin's son, Vasily, once said. Actually, the dictator didn't truly become Russian; he remained Georgian culturally. Yet he embraced the imperial mission of the Russian people. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Used

Son

Said

" I love the heat and the excitement of Israel, and I will always love Jerusalem. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Always

Heat

Excitement

" I am a passionate nonfinisher. Life is too short, and there are too many great books to read, so if I lose interest or respect, I switch. But when, of course, when you really fall in love with a book, all the others are ignored. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Love

Respect

Great

" After the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian influence collapsed, and Moscow came to bitterly resent the Western interventions that destroyed Mr. Hussein and Colonel Qaddafi. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Influence

Soviet

Union

" Colonel Qaddafi's tyranny was absolutist, monarchical, and personal. The problem with such dictatorships is that as long as the tyrant lives, he reigns and terrorizes. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Tyranny

Problem