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" I'm the sort of person who, if I arrive in a city under siege, in the middle of nowhere, I'll always find my way to the leader of the rebels. I just don't know how. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Leader
City
Find
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" Gay weddings will be remembered as Tony Blair's greatest achievement! "
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" One of the strange things about doing publicity is that a mistake in a newspaper profile long ago is repeated and amplified over time. "
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" The West is pathetically naive about Russian reformers. We long to believe they are real liberals, but no liberal will ever rule Russia. "
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" No one can take away the experience of Yeltsin's freedoms, but Russian democracy will never follow Western models: other authoritarian 'controlled democracies' - Turkey, Taiwan, Mexico - ultimately developed into democracies. But it took decades. "
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" Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity! "
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" 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
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" If only all straight weddings could be somehow gay-ified. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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" 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. "
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" 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
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Problem
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" Mr. Putin presents himself as a czar - and like any czar, he fears revolution above all else. "
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" Bolshevism was a mind-set, an idiosyncratic culture with an intolerant paranoid wordview obsessed with abstruse Marxist ideology. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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" I love the heat and the excitement of Israel, and I will always love Jerusalem. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Always
Heat
Excitement
" Russian writers enjoy almost sacred status. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Enjoy
Almost
Sacred
" I love the flamboyance, the melodrama, the bloody theatre of Russian history. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Theatre
Love
I Love
" 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
Literature
American
Dove
" I don't think Jerusalem should be controlled 100% by religious people of any denomination, sect, or religion - even my own. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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" Under Stalin, artists weren't dissidents; all they hoped was to survive and write. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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" '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
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" Alexander II really used autocracy well to negotiate the freeing of the serfs in 1861. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Used
Really
Negotiate
" 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
Destroy
Different
Plot
" I am ashamed to say that both my children knew Stalin before they knew Thomas the Tank Engine. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Am
Say
I Am
" 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
Me
Never
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" I don't feel that Jewish people have a class. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
People
Jewish
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" I always find that the more Jewish you are, the more people respect you. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Find
You
Respect
" 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
" I don't like sports. I'm not interested in sports. I hate sports. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Like
Not Interested
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" I can never resist Ruritanian intrigue: I was once charged with the task of offering the Estonian throne to Prince Edward. Feeling like a Dumas Musketeer on a mission, I did so, but he turned it down. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Mission
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" The tsar of War and Peace, especially in the BBC version, is a complete popinjay and a useless character. The real tsar, Alexander I, had an amazing career. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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" The unspoken contract between ruler and subject is that in return for safety, prosperity, and prestige, the Russians entrust power and cede democratic freedoms to their leaders. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Prosperity
Contract
Safety
" Stalin, of course, never went on trial, but his legacy did. In 1956, three years after his death, he was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev. And his crimes were even more explicitly exposed by Mikhail Gorbachev during the late '80s. Yet to many, Stalin remains more legitimate as a Russian leader than anyone since. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Legacy
Late
Three