Quotes

Others

Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.

Others

The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong but time and chance happens to them all. Evil falls suddenly, who can say when it falls?

Others

In the operational funds box we will deposit 250,000 American dollars. You take it out - we put more in. I want receipts! [he emphatically slams his hand on his desk] You are not working for the Baron Rothschild; you're working for Israel, a small country! I'm an old Galicianer from a mud hut in the Ukraine, and I don't trust Yekke putzes let loose in Europe with unlimited operational expenses!

Dialogue

Robert: We're Jews, Avner. Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong. Avner: We can't afford to be that decent anymore. Robert: I don't know if we ever were that decent. Suffering thousands of years of hatred doesn't make you decent. But we're supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. That's Jewish. That's what I knew, that's what I was taught and I'm losing it. I lose that and that's everything. That's my soul.

Dialogue

Carl: It's strange, isn't it, to think of oneself as an assassin? Avner: Think of yourself as something else then.

Dialogue

Papa: I blew up trains, bridges...and trucks full of Germans during the war. My brothers were killed, my papa and my sister were both hanged. She was a young girl. Louis: Papa, the guest doesn't want to hear your war stories. Papa: We paid this price, so Vichy scum could be replaced...by Gaullist scum...and the Nazis could be replaced by Stalin and America. We stay away from governments.

Dialogue

Let me see your hands. Too big for a good cook. That was my problem too! I had been a master, but I have thick, stupid butcher's hands just like yours. Oh, we are tragic men. Butcher's hands, gentle souls.

Dialogue

Daphna: We should stay at home. Avner: You are the only home I ever had. Daphna: [laughs] This is so corny. Avner: What? That took a lot for me to say! Daphna: I bet. Why did I have to marry a sentimentalist? You're ruining my life. Avner: [to their newborn baby] Your mother's teasing me.

Dialogue

Steve: [to Avner] You know how to shoot, to assassinate people, right? I mean... [to Robert] you make dolls in a toyshop. [to Hans] And you, you shop for sofas? [to Carl] And you, I don't know what you do. Carl: Me? I worry. Steve: [to Avner] So why did they make you team leader? Hans: Because he really knows how to cook a brisket.

Dialogue

Avner: I was born in Israel. I'm not a Yekke. Mossad Accountant: Where was your grandpa from? Avner: Frankfurt. Mossad Accountant: You're a Yekke!

Dialogue

Ali: Eventually the Arab states will rise against Israel. They don't like Palestinians but they hate the Jews more. It won't be like 1967. The rest of the world will see by then what Israel does to us. They won't help when Egypt and Syria attack. Even Jordan. Israel will cease to exist. [Avner stares at him in disbelief] What? Avner: This is a dream. You can't take back a country you never had. Ali: You sound like a Jew. Avner: Fuck you. I'm the voice inside your head telling you what you already know. You people have nothing to bargain with. You'll never get the land back. You'll die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine. Ali: We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever, and if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews. Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them, and thinks you animals. Ali: Yes. But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.

Dialogue

Jeanette: I have to go to bed soon. I work in the morning. Avner: What kind of work do you do? Jeanette: [taking a long drag on her cigarette] The kind that drives you to drink. Avner: We must have the same job then.

Dialogue

Avner: Come to my house for dinner tonight. Come on, you're a Jew, you're a stranger. It's written somewhere that I should invite you to break bread with me. So, break bread with me, Ephraim. Ephraim: No.