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" Russian writers enjoy almost sacred status. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Enjoy
Almost
Sacred
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
History
World
Revolution
" As colonial puppeteer and successful restorer of Russia as imperial superpower, Mr. Putin is Stalin's consummate heir. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Colonial
Russia
Superpower
" As a youth, I was much more of a Zionist. But Israel was very different then. Israel's changed, and so have I. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
More
Youth
Israel
" To make a Frankenstein monster of a complex character like Stalin would have been too simplistic. I wanted to show who he was and, if you like, how he happened. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Who
Show
You
" Every time I give an interview, I seem to offend somebody in my family, usually my mother. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Time
Seem
Mother
" 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
Improvement
Greatness
Great
" When I'm up, I'm over-exuberant; when I'm down, I just wander round on my own. I have no middle space. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Wander
Up
My Own
" 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
" I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Write
Always
History
" 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
" I read many wonderful novels, though I now find the idea of literary fiction obsolete. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Fiction
Now
Wonderful
" 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! "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
People
Curiosity
Great
" '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
" 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
" 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 see the world as an adventure thriller and a voyage of discovery. To me, all lives are lives of mystery and secrecy, and that's what I write about. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Mystery
Discovery
Adventure
" 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
Peace
War
Amazing
" Under Stalin, artists weren't dissidents; all they hoped was to survive and write. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Were
Write
Artists
" 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
Time
Racing
Monarchy
" There are few words in Russian for the Western concept of 'law,' but there are legions of words for connections, helping people from one's neck of the woods. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Connections
People
Law
" In 1942, the Germans were running out of fuel. They were advancing so fast across the grasslands, the hot grasslands of south Russia, and the Russians were running out of tanks. And so both of them turned to cavalry, and there were great cavalry battles on the grasslands. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Running
Battles
Hot
" Mugabe's resignation fascinates because the fall of tyrants is always a family story, decline of the father, writ large. What a strange creature he is. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Father
Family
He
" 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
" 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
Police
Never
Revolution
" In 1918, a police chief of Jerusalem was a Montefiore. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Chief
Police
Jerusalem
" I enjoy tequila, which has a strange effect on people and makes parties more fun than warm white wine. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
People
Enjoy
Fun
" 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
Family
Retirement
Power
" Russia is so feudal in its system of patronage and reward that it is virtually impossible for a leader to hand over power without controlling his successor or at least receiving an exemption from prosecution - something Mr. Putin granted his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Reward
Leader
Power
" 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