Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Related Quotes:

" One of the strange things about doing publicity is that a mistake in a newspaper profile long ago is repeated and amplified over time. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Every time I give an interview, I seem to offend somebody in my family, usually my mother. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" The Russian Revolution mobilized a popular passion across the world based on Marxism-Leninism, fueled by messianic zeal. It was, perhaps, after the three Abrahamic religions, the greatest millenarian rapture of human history. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" The West is pathetically naive about Russian reformers. We long to believe they are real liberals, but no liberal will ever rule Russia. "

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

" 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

" I was taught Shakespeare brilliantly by an eccentric genius at Harrow named Jeremy Lemmon who made me want to be a writer. "

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

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" I don't think Jerusalem should be controlled 100% by religious people of any denomination, sect, or religion - even my own. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" The vanishing of David Tang is like the unthinkable diappearance of a magnificent palace on a mythical mountaintop. He was a dreammaker, pianist, adventurer, writer, entrepreneur, scholar, connoisseur, and a great friend. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" I was driving across Georgia with a warlord and his bodyguards riding shotgun with their Kalashnikovs in a convoy of Mercedes and Land Rovers. The guy put on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' on a cassette, which they played on loudspeakers as we raced across the mountains, and I remember thinking, 'This sure beats respectable life in England.' "

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

" I enjoy tequila, which has a strange effect on people and makes parties more fun than warm white wine. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" She grounded me. I have become very disciplined now. I would never have written the books without her. Definitely the cleverest thing I ever did was to marry Santa. Maybe it's the only clever thing I did. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family's home life during the last years of Russian autocracy. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" In Georgia, where I spend much time, the democratically elected pro-western President Mikhail Saakashvili has been beleaguered by a riotous opposition which proposes creating a constitutional monarchy under the Bagrationi dynasty, with a Spanish racing driver, Prince 'Jorge' Bagrationi, as king. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" Believe it or not, some Western analysts in the 1930s insisted that Stalin was a 'moderate,' controlled by extremists like the secret police chief Nikolai Yezhov. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" 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

" Most history books are about power. "

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" '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

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

Simon Sebag Montefiore

" I don't feel that Jewish people have a class. "

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