Literary Birthday – 3 August – Leon Uris

Leon Uris was born on 3 August 1924 and died on 21 June 2003.

Leon Uris Quotes

1. I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.
2. A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith in yourself won’t hurt a thing. All the bastards in the world will snicker and sneer because they haven’t the talent to zip up their flies by themselves. To hell with them, particularly the critics. Stand in there, son, no matter how badly you are battered and hurt.
3. It is extremely important to know what you don’t want to find.
4. Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line that he’s either naïve or insane.
5. I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.
6. To me, a writer is one of the most important soldiers in the fight for survival of the human race. He must stay at his post in the thick of fire to serve the cause of mankind.
7. I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get mad and stay mad. If things don’t make a writer mad, he’ll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail.
8. Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.
9. The ability of a person to atone has always been the most remarkable of human features.

Leon Uris was an American author of fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays whose work included numerous bestselling novels. He was best known for his meticulously researched historical fiction, which brought major events of the twentieth century vividly to life. His novels often explored dramatic moments in modern history, including World War II and its aftermath, the founding of the state of Israel, and the Cold War. Among his most famous works are Exodus and Trinity, both of which topped The New York Times Best Sellers list. Trinity spent 21 weeks at number one in 1976 and a further 14 weeks in 1977.

Source for photograph: Alexander Smukler, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leon_Uris_(cropped).jpg

by Amanda Patterson
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