A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me, it is utterly basic yet it seems like it's a great secret.

— Leon Uris

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.

— Leon Uris

Anything to declare? The customs inspector said." Two pound of uncut heroin and a manual of pornographic art," Mark answered, looking about for City. All Americans are comedians, the inspector thought, as he passed Parker through. A government tourist hostess approached him." Are you Mr. Mark Parker?"" Guilty.

— Leon Uris

For an instant he was able to cross the line and understand this strange loyalty of Jew to Jew. Those Jews who lived free in England were only there due to some quirk of fate instead of Auschwitz and every Jew knew that genocide could have happened to his own family except for that quirk of fate. Yet, as time stood suspended, Gilroy was all gentiles who never quite understood Jews. He could befriend them, work with them, but never totally understand them. He was all white men who could never quite understand black men and all black men who could never quite understand whites. Furthermore, he was all normal men who could tolerate or even defend homosexuals...but never fully understand them. There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different.

— Leon Uris

Huxley: "Tell me something Bryce, do you know the difference between a Jersey, a Guernsey, a Holstein, and an Ayrshire?" Bryce: "No." Huxley: "Seabags Brown does." Bryce: "I don't see what that has to do..." Huxley: "What do you know about Gaelic history?" Bryce: "Not much." Huxley: "Then why don't you sit down one day with Gunner McQuade. He is an expert. Speaks the language, too." Bryce: "I don't..." Huxley:" What do you know about astronomy?" Bryce: "A little." Huxley: "Discuss it with Hellman, he held a fellowship." Bryce: "This is most puzzling." Huxley: "What about Homer, ever read Homer?" Bryce: "Of course I've read Homer." Huxley: "In the original Greek?" Bryce: "No"Huxley: "Then chat with Pfc. Hodgkin. Loves to read the ancient Greek." Bryce: "Would you kindly get to the point?" Huxley: "The point is this, Bryce. What makes you think you are so goddam superior? Who gave you the bright idea that you had a corner on the world's knowledge? There are privates in this battalion who can piss more brains down a slit trench then you'll ever have. You're the most pretentious, egotistical individual I've ever encountered. Your superiority complex reeks. I've seen the way you treat men, like a big strutting peacock. Why, you've had them do everything but wipe your ass.

— Leon Uris

I am very proud of this work because it is more about the meaning of the Easter Rising and its relationship to what this whole century has been about, people liberating themselves, freeing themselves.

— Leon Uris

I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that, they have to get made and stay mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Floppy, Mossy, and Cottontail.

— Leon Uris

In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to.

— Leon Uris

Miss Abigail, I want to be an author because writers know when a person is lonely. I mean, when Molly read me some books, those writers reached out and said, Look Gideon, we know about your loneliness, and we know you're feeling downtrodden. And they said... I'll stand up for you. You're not lone anymore.

— Leon Uris

Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young plain old poverty can be enough along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it don't become a writer.

— Leon Uris