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" Yeltsin was admirable but flawed, noble but tainted, but in his own negligent grandeur, he undermined his own real achievements - and accelerated their ruin. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Ruin
Admirable
He
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" 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
Life
Memoirs
Years
" I much prefer writing fiction. History books, for me, are very hard work, very serious. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Writing
Hard Work
History
" 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
Genius
Me
Writer
" 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
Now
" 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
" 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. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Lived
Family
Loved
" 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
" 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 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
Like
Great
Friend
" 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
" 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
Been
Blackberry
Telephone
" 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
" I read many wonderful novels, though I now find the idea of literary fiction obsolete. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Fiction
Now
Wonderful
" 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
" Most history books are about power. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Most
About
Books
" A crenelated wall of books encircles my bed, its tottering towers looming ever taller, always on the verge of collapsing onto oblivious sleepers. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Books
Towers
Wall
" 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
" A book's title is vital. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Title
Vital
Book
" 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
" If only all straight weddings could be somehow gay-ified. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Could
Only
Somehow
" 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
" 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
Doing
Time
Strange
" I always find that the more Jewish you are, the more people respect you. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Find
You
Respect
" 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
" I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Write
Always
History
" Historical fiction is simply fiction set in the past, and should be judged as such. "
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Historical
Past
In The Past
" 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
" '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
" 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
He
" 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