Rabih Alameddine Quotes & Sayings

We rarely consider that we're also formed by the decisions we didn't make, by events that could have happened but didn't, or by our lack of choices, for that matter. (p. 22) — Rabih Alameddine

Like all cities, Beirut has many layers, and I had been familiar with one or two. What I was introduced to that day with Ali and Kamal was the Beirut of its people. You take different groups, put them on top of each other, simmer for a thousand years, keep adding more and more strange tribes, simmer for another few thousand years, salt and pepper with religion, and what you get is a delightful mess of a stew that still tastes delectable and exotic, no matter how many times you partake of it. — Rabih Alameddine

Fate's schedule is not always naked and clear. — Rabih Alameddine

Belief is the enemy of a storyteller — Rabih Alameddine

No loss is felt more keenly than the loss of what might have been. No nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed. — Rabih Alameddine

The reasons why a player is better on one club than on another are many. I certainly am not an expert and can't explain. — Rabih Alameddine

I can imagine her memories of the novel, or, more likely, of who she was and how she felt when reading it. — Rabih Alameddine

When the Lebanese Civil War started in 1975, I was 15. I was shipped to boarding school in England and, after that, to UCLA. — Rabih Alameddine

In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English. — Rabih Alameddine

He may be my half brother, but we're not related. A chasm of incommunicable worlds lies between us. (p. 70) — Rabih Alameddine

Reality never meets our wants, and adjusting both is why we tell stories. — Rabih Alameddine

I opened myself to you only to be skinned alive. The more vulnerable I became, the faster and more deft your knife. Knowing what was happening, still I stayed and let you carve more. That's how much I loved you. That's how much. — Rabih Alameddine

I want a God that makes me twirl.' I jumped off the couch. I untucked and unbuttoned my shirt so it would flow like a robe. 'Like this. I can do this for God.' I held my hands out. I twirled and twirled and twirled. 'Look,' I said. 'Look. — Rabih Alameddine

I can dig out the old chestnut from George Santayana, that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," but it serves no purpose. It's a hopelessly optimistic quote. We are condemned to repeat the past whether we remember it or not. It is inevitable; just ask Nietzsche (eternal return) or Hegel (history repeats itself) or James McCourt (history repeats itself like hiccups). — Rabih Alameddine

I am a reader. Yes, I am that, a reader with nagging back pain. — Rabih Alameddine

As teenagers, a lot of us just did not want much to do with Arabic culture - we looked to the West. — Rabih Alameddine

A player should be disparaged if he gives less than his all, if he doesn't give 100%, no matter what shirt he's wearing. Whether it's your national team, your club, or little league. Yes, there are friendly matches, recreational ones, and so on, but sport in its essence is about giving your best. — Rabih Alameddine

I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality. — Rabih Alameddine

By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across
each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip
is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale. — Rabih Alameddine

Translation is so important. The new American translations of the Bible sound like a Judith Krantz novel. — Rabih Alameddine

What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us. — Rabih Alameddine

I jokingly say if there was one great thing about, you know, the Lebanese Civil War was that it forced me to read. — Rabih Alameddine

Whenever I come across an Arabic word mired in English text, I am momentarily shocked out of the narrative. — Rabih Alameddine

I realised when it came to men, I did not pick the beautiful or the correct. I picked the wrong one. — Rabih Alameddine

I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse: the dark inside, or the darkness out. — Rabih Alameddine

Soccer is the most widely played sport in the U.S. — Rabih Alameddine

Every writer uses his own way to motivate oneself. — Rabih Alameddine

My mind becomes congested, jammed with feelings and thoughts that I can't formulate nimbly enough. — Rabih Alameddine

The memory seems both real and unreal, reliable and tenuous, solid and insubstantial. — Rabih Alameddine

Sex, like art, can unsettle a soul, can grind a heart in a mortar. Sex, like literature, can sneak the other within one's wall, even if for only a moment, a moment before one immures oneself again. — Rabih Alameddine

The relationship between France and its 'foreign' players - blacks and North African Arabs - has always been troubled, particularly with Algerians. — Rabih Alameddine

Noah, however, was a son of a bitch of a captain who ran a very tight ship. Only pairs of the best and the brightest were allowed to climb the plank - perpetuate the species, repopulate the planet, and all that Nazi nonsense. Would Noah have allowed a lesbian zebra aboard, an unmarried hedgehog, a limping lemur? — Rabih Alameddine

I always say show me a storyteller who doesn't embellish, and I'll show you a bad one. — Rabih Alameddine

The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990, spanned four World Cups. It would have been a more symmetrical five had the Lebanese begun in 1974, but you know, we're Mediterranean, and timing isn't our forte. — Rabih Alameddine

By remaining constrained in one's environment or country or family, one has little chance of being other than the original prescription. By leaving, one gains a perspective, a distance of both space and time, which is essential for writing about family or home, in any case. — Rabih Alameddine

From my village I see as much of the universe as you can see from earth, So my village is as big as any other land For I am the size of what I see, Not the size of my height. - Fernando Pessoa as Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep — Rabih Alameddine

I slipped into art to escape life. I sneaked off into literature. — Rabih Alameddine

One of the things I enjoy most during the World Cup is watching a team improve, mature, and gel during the course of the tournament. — Rabih Alameddine

There is none more conformist than one who flaunts his individuality. — Rabih Alameddine

No snake is as venomous as wounded privilege. — Rabih Alameddine

We are all children when we sleep. — Rabih Alameddine

To write is to know that you are not at home. — Rabih Alameddine

The receding perspective of my past smothers my present. Remembering is the malignancy that feasts on my now. — Rabih Alameddine

Before prognostication, a disclaimer: I have never been able to pick a winner. Not that it has ever stopped me from trying to. Well, it has stopped me from buying stock, but let's not talk about that. — Rabih Alameddine

I've never had a problem finding a team, a league, or a pickup game. Actually, I'm not sure I want soccer to get bigger. We have so many teams in San Francisco that there aren't enough fields. — Rabih Alameddine

My grandson was circumcised today. I was surprised how easily my son-in-law accepted his son's circumcision. He is Christian, Greek Orthodox. I think it is a good thing it happened. During the war, they were exchanging corpses of dead fighters on both sides. The Christians found out they had eighteen unidentified corpses. They weren't sure whether to send them to West Beirut or keep them. Bashir Gemayel told them to undress the corpses. If they were circumcised, send them to West Beirut. If they happened to be circumcised Christians, they deserve to be buried with Muslims. — Rabih Alameddine

I try to live without interfering in the lives of others because I have no wish for them to interfere in mine. — Rabih Alameddine

I had dreams, and they were not about ending up a speck. I didn't dream of becoming a star, but I thought I might have a small nonspeaking role in a grand epic, an epic with a touch of artistic credentials. I didn't dream of becoming a giant - I wasn't that delusional or arrogant - but I wanted to be more than a speck, maybe a midget. — Rabih Alameddine

My father loved Brazilian football, a diehard follower, so of course, he hated Germany and always rooted against them, always. — Rabih Alameddine

I was a tourist in a bizarre land. I was home. — Rabih Alameddine

I have to admit, I'm not patriotic. It has partly to do with principle, but it is also a phobia/neurosis. — Rabih Alameddine

For me, soccer was a dance. — Rabih Alameddine

Almost everything that men have said best has been said in Greek. — Rabih Alameddine

Is life less thrilling if your neighbors are rational, if they don't bomb your power stations whenever they feel you need to be admonished? Is it less rousing if they don't rattle your windows and nerves with indiscriminate sonic booms just because they can? — Rabih Alameddine

Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us. My father and I may have shared numerous experiences, but, as I was constantly finding out, we rarely shared their stories; we din't know how to listen to one another. — Rabih Alameddine

Anyone who says the pen is mightier than the sword has never come face-to-face with a gun. — Rabih Alameddine

I loved problems on paper, and I was good at math, but I was a mechanical engineer, and I never understood - or cared to - how a car worked. — Rabih Alameddine

I started writing half a paragraph of a mystery novel, half a paragraph there, and they were terrible. — Rabih Alameddine

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book. — Rabih Alameddine

A team without hope fizzles: no flameout, no fire. — Rabih Alameddine

Nick commenced a monologue explaining the impossibility of such a phenomenon: the subordination of content to the aesthetics of language in Arabic literature, the dominance of panegyrics and eulogies as an art form, etc. — Rabih Alameddine

I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic. — Rabih Alameddine

I allegedly am an outsider writer, so I write from the perspective of somebody who doesn't completely fit in. But at the same time, I can state the fact that I don't know of any good writer who is not an outsider writer. — Rabih Alameddine

I can make up stories with the best of them. I've been telling stories since I was a little kid. — Rabih Alameddine

Joy is the anticipation of joy. — Rabih Alameddine

In every evocation of a childhood scene, my stepfather's face is the least detailed, the most out of focus; when I think of him my memory's eyes have cataracts. (p. 12) — Rabih Alameddine

I also understand that you have to lie to yourself to survive in a bad marriage, you have to delude yourself if you want to carry on in this life. — Rabih Alameddine

Saint Francis de Salle, not the real Saint Francis with the cute birds and animals, wrote that in his book Introduction to the Devout Life, which talked about how bad sex was in four large volumes. It earned Francis here a sainthood. All I can say is, I am glad I'm not Christian. For us Muslims, we just stone adulterers to death, which is much more humane than guilt. — Rabih Alameddine

In the summer of 1988, my father took me up to look at the remains of our home, the dream house that he'd built. It was my first time since our family left four years earlier. Political and obscene graffiti covered the half-torn walls. There was no ceiling and surprisingly no floor: the parquet, the stone, the marble, all looted. — Rabih Alameddine

Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books. (p. 5) — Rabih Alameddine

But to paraphrase the ever-paraphraseable Freud, who said something to the effect that when you speak about the past you lie with every breath you take, I will say this: When you write about the past, you lie with each letter, with every grapheme, including the goddamn comma. — Rabih Alameddine

Hope, the great deceiver, seduced her that morning. — Rabih Alameddine

Cervantes told me history is the mother of truth.
Borges told me historical truth is not what took place; it is what we think took place.
So Billy Shakespeare was queer.
Ronnie was the greatest president in history, right up there on Mount Rushmore.
AIDS is mankind's greatest plague.
Israel only kills terrorists.
America never bombed Lebanon.
Jesus was straight. Juda and he were just friends.
Roseanne's parents molested her as an infant.
Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat deserved their Nobels.
And Gaetan Dugas started the AIDS epidemic. — Rabih Alameddine

Childhood is played out in a foreign language and our memory of it is a Constance Garnett translation. — Rabih Alameddine

Passion was the antithesis of morality. — Rabih Alameddine

Satan said, You are a temp in life. — Rabih Alameddine

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

Causation extraction makes Jack a dull reader. — Rabih Alameddine

The presence of another person - of any person whatsoever - makes me feel awkward, — Rabih Alameddine

Once upon a time there was an island visited by ruin and inhabited by strange peccant creatures. "It's a sad place," I say, "and too much like my own life." He nods. "You mean, the losing struggle against inscrutable blind forces, young dreams brought to ruin." "Yes," I tell Coover, "my young dreams are gone. I lost the struggle a long, long time ago. — Rabih Alameddine

Memory chooses to preserve what desire cannot hope to sustain. — Rabih Alameddine

Isn't a sensitive soul simply a means of transforming a deficiency into proud disdain? — Rabih Alameddine

I was a lonely boy. I spent all my time reading books and watching the world. [some] tried to draw me out at first, but their hearts weren't in it. And after all, they had enough troubles of their own. — Rabih Alameddine

Anna Karenina was the first time I allowed a book and its world into my house. — Rabih Alameddine

Her appearance has changed as well, and I don't mean just the intense reticulation of lines and wrinkles, the true stigmata of life. — Rabih Alameddine

Among the many definitions of progress, "enemy of trees" and "killer of birds" seem to me the most apt. — Rabih Alameddine

In 1975, I left the burning city of Beirut for the quiet insanity of England. To say that short, frail and wispy 15-year-old me didn't fit in would be such an understatement as to be a joke. — Rabih Alameddine

One reason we desire explanations is that they separate us and make us feel safe. — Rabih Alameddine

She felt the intimate loss of who she was meant to become. — Rabih Alameddine

No one needs to be reminded of racism in soccer: the xenophobia, the nativism and, yes, nationalism. — Rabih Alameddine

A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy. — Rabih Alameddine

Had I known that coffee could taste so good, I would have gotten drunk on it every day. — Rabih Alameddine

Later, much later, as an adult woman, she wrote of her need to be loved, to be desired, as a ravenous monster with an exigent appetite living in a black hole within. Whatever love was thrown her way, the monster devoured it and left her with nothing. — Rabih Alameddine

When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved.
I am Raskalnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita.
I am you.
If you read these pages and think I'm the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can't feel my pain. If you believe you're not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you're unable to empathize. — Rabih Alameddine

In 1982, Algeria made their first appearance at the World Cup. I believe it was the first Arab country to do so. — Rabih Alameddine

I consider it a shame that most contemporary American writing seems informed more by Hemingway, the hero of adolescent boys of all ages and genders, than by the sui generis genius of letters, Faulkner. A phalanx of books about boredom in the Midwest is lauded (where the Midwest lies is a source of constant puzzlement to me, somewhere near Iowa, I presume), as are books about unexplored angst in New Jersey or couples unable to communicate in Connecticut. It was Camus who asserted that American novelists are the only ones who think they need not be intellectuals. — Rabih Alameddine

Memory, memoir, autobiography - lies, lies, all lies. — Rabih Alameddine

I was about 11 or 12 when I began to pick up my mother's books. — Rabih Alameddine

I can easily hold two opposing beliefs at the same time without any problem, which I find - well, mind-expanding, really. — Rabih Alameddine

If you go through any culture that has had wars, go to the bomb shelters, and you'll hear some amazing stories. Yes, it's a necessary thing that we actually both distract ourselves and it's a way to bond. — Rabih Alameddine