Quotes

“To her, libraries were like hotels: secret villages inhabited by passing strangers from a thousand different worlds brought together just for a few hours.”
p. 411
“The European upper classes...could not decide if the Jews were a noble race of persecuted biblical heroes, every one of them a King David and a Maccabee, or a sinister conspiracy of mystically brilliant, hook-nosed hobbits with almost supernatural powers.”
Jerusalem: The Biography, p. 413
“For 1,000 years, Jerusalem was exclusively Jewish; for about 400 years, Christian; for 1,300 years, Islamic; and not one of the three faiths ever gained Jerusalem without the sword, the mangonel or the howitzer.”
Jerusalem: The Biography, p. 516
“War was simply a slaughterhouse on wheels, he thought. For most men, soldiering was tragedy expressed as a profession.”
One Night in Winter, pp. 279-280
‘The greatest privilege of childhood’, she said, ‘is to live safely in the present.’
One Night in Winter, p. 320

Books by Simon Sebag-Montefiore in order

Books by Simon Sebag-Montefiore in the order they were published, from King's Parade (1991) to World (2022).