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" Historical fiction is simply fiction set in the past, and should be judged as such. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

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" 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

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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. "

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" I'm an enormous fan of American literature, and especially the great novels of Larry McMurtry, 'Lonesome Dove,' Cormac McCarthy, Elmore Leonard. "

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" 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

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

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" I always find that the more Jewish you are, the more people respect you. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Lenin had just reflected that the revolution would never happen in his lifetime when in February 1917, hungry crowds in Petrograd overthrew Nicholas II while the revolutionaries were abroad, exiled, or infiltrated by the secret police. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" The shameless criminality of Lenin, Stalin, and the Cheka cast a long shadow, but I don't see their kind returning anytime soon. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Moses Montefiore loved Jerusalem, lived for Jerusalem, and even made it our family motto. A Zionist before the word was invented, he believed in the sacred idea of Jewish return as a religious Jew's duty, and in Jewish statehood. "

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" I don't like sports. I'm not interested in sports. I hate sports. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" The Europeans do tend to delegitimize Israel and turn Israel into a dirty word, which is unforgivable. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Real stories - whether in pure fiction or historical - have a certain indefinable power; we are endlessly curious about the past and hungry for learning that we hope will illuminate the present. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" In the new Georgia, Stalin is no longer Georgian. He's a Russian emperor. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" When I'm in Jerusalem, I stay at the American Colony Hotel, neutral territory: the secret peace talks of 1992/3 started there. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" Nicholas I has been called 'Genghis Khan with a telegraph.' Stalin was 'Genghis Khan with a telephone.' But Mr. Putin is not Genghis Khan with a BlackBerry. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Under Stalin, artists weren't dissidents; all they hoped was to survive and write. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" The disorder, uncertainty, and strife of a revolution make citizens yearn for stable authority, or they turn to radicalism. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" It is a characteristic of potentates that they don't succumb to peaceful retirement. Instead, they hold power in their hoary fists as judgment and grip weaken, destroying any successors except family members. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Regarding themselves as irreplaceable, both Lenin and Stalin tried in different ways to destroy their successors - Lenin through a testament that attacked Stalin and Trotsky, Stalin through purges culminating in the Doctors' Plot of 1953. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" I much prefer writing fiction. History books, for me, are very hard work, very serious. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" With popular rulers, the wife can become the guardian of their greatness: Peter the Great was succeeded by his wife, Catherine I. Sometimes the wives are an improvement. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore