Algerian Quotes & Sayings

The decision to use torture as a terror of retribution gives an inner satisfaction to the person who practises it, even if this is difficult for him to accept openly. Having been injured and humiliated by aggression, he can now humiliate in his turn those whom he considers to be his aggressors, and rediscover his self-esteem. As an ex-soldier of the Algerian War explains, forty years after the events: 'You could feel a certain form of jubilation while being present at such extreme scenes . . . Doing to a body whatever you feel like doing to it.' Reducing the other to a state of complete impotence gives you a feeling of supreme power. This feeling is one which torture gives you more than murder does, since the latter does not last: once dead, the other becomes an inert object and no longer produces that jubilation which stems from fully triumphing over the will of another, without his ceasing to exist. — Tzvetan Todorov

Every day I think about where I come from and I am still proud to be who I am: first, a Kabyle from La Castellane, then an Algerian from Marseille, and then a Frenchman. — Zinedine Zidane

In the end, as at the beginning, the divine turns out to be most interested in the unique life of the individual soul. That's what was meant by the old idea that "inside people is where god learns." This is not a religious notion, but more of a spiritual insight. For this conversation god is simply the shortest way to refer to the divine. When a unique life becomes fully livedeveryone involved learns something and it becomes clear that god was involved all along. — Michael Meade

He stood watching the approaching locamotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands. — Willa Cather

My father is an Algerian, proud of who he is and I am proud that my father is Algerian. — Zinedine Zidane

Incineration does not equal human digestion; eating a fireplace log will not store the same number of calories as burning one will produce. — Timothy Ferriss

The unveiled Algerian woman, who assumed an increasingly important place in revolutionary action, developed her personality, discovered the exalting realm of responsibility. The freedom of the Algerian people from then on became identified with woman's liberation, with her entry into history. This woman who, in the avenues of Algier or of Constantine, would carry the grenades or the submachine-gun chargers, this woman who tomorrow would be outraged, violated, tortured, could not put herself back into her former state of mind and relive her behaviour of the past; this woman who was writing the heroic pages of Algerian history was, in so doing, bursting the bounds of the narrow in which she had lived without responsibility, and was at the same time participating in the destruction of colonialism and in the birth of a new woman. — Frantz Fanon

The next thing you know, the people you always thought would be there, aren't. And the person you thought you could trust with everything, isn't the person you knew at all. — Rebecca Donovan

Now there were a few skirt-wearing, firm-breasted Algerian women who shuttled between our world and the world of the roumis, down in the French neighborhoods. We brats used to call them whores and stone them with our eyes. They were fascinating targets, because they could promise the pleasures of — Kamel Daoud

Way far back in the beginning of the world was the whirlwind warning that we could all be blown away like chips and cry- Men with tired eyes realize it now, and wait to deform and decay- with maybe they have the power of love yet in their hearts just the same, I just don't know what that word means anymore- All I want is an ice cream cone — Jack Kerouac

Kalaj would say, "I've got the eyes of a lynx, the memory of an elephant, the instincts of a wolf ... "
" ... and the brain of a tapir," would interrupt his nemesis, the Algerian. — Andre Aciman

I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose? — Azar Nafisi

I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw a solitary white, ape-like creature running rather quickly up the hill, and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body. — H.G.Wells

Don't you think our society is designed to kill in that way? Of course, you've surely heard about those tiny fish in the rivers of Brazil which attack the swimmer by the thousands, eat him up in a few moments in quick little mouthfuls and leave only a perfectly clean skeleton behind? So, that's the way they're constituted. 'Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?' Of course the answer is yes. How could you not? 'Fine. We'll clean you up. Here's a job, here's a family, here's some organized leisure.' And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone. But i'm being unfair. I shouldn't have said, 'the way they're constituted', because after all, it's our way, too: it's a case of who strips whom. — Albert Camus

In the 1990s, Islamists in Algeria won elections like the Brotherhood did in Egypt. The Algerian military refused to allow the Islamists to take power. A war erupted, killing between 100,000 to 200,000 people, depending on which estimates are to be believed. — Richard Engel

There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide," the text began. I winced. "Whether or not the world has three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories," it continued, "comes afterward"; such questions, the text explained, were part of the game humanity played, but they deserved attention only after the one true issue had been settled. The book was The Myth of Sisyphus and was written by the Algerian-born philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus. After a moment, the iciness of his words melted under the light of comprehension. Yes, of course, I thought. You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That's what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail. — Brian Greene

Then, on December 14, 1999, an alert United States Customs agent in Port Angeles, Washington, stopped a nervous twenty-three-year-old Algerian named Ahmed Ressam who was crossing over from Canada on the last ferry of the evening. He had explosives in his trunk and plans to blow them up at the Los Angeles International Airport. The case galvanized the government into an all-out millennium alert. Watson and the White House counterterrorism group met around the clock. They sought an extraordinary number of FISA wiretaps; Janet Reno authorized at least one warrantless search on her own authority. Clarke — Tim Weiner

The Macedonian Endeavour Channel was screening live coverage of the world series of the Who's Got the Stupidest Name (WGSN) competition. First prize had already gone to Brian Burdock, a French Algerian with a penchant for Longchamp. — St John Morris

(Algerian athlete, 1996 Summer Olympics, on the 3000m world record)
I think my 3:27 for 1500m is worth 7:21 for 3000m. — Noureddine Morceli

I have Algerian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish blood: I feel like a citizen of the world. Life and cinema don't have borders. — Eva Green

All beauty must have its imperfections, all happiness its share of sorrow. — Susan Kay

After the dismissal of Hamrouche and until 1999, the state underwent a severe financial crisis and was on the verge of stopping all payments. Loans had to be negotiated with international financial institutions, particularly with the IMF, which required a structural adjustment program. State finances were saved by credits from the IMF and the European Union. Algerian negotiators, who played on the fear of the European states about the Islamist threat, said in effect, "It's either us, with all our defects, or an Islamist republic just one hour's flight from Europe." Alarmed to the point of panic, the West paid up without any conditions on how their credits were to be used. Policy thereafter fluctuated between rhetoric and laxity in letting deficits mount. — Ellen Lust

Since they weren't sleepy and nothing had been left unsaid, they began to read poetry to each other, taking turns like children and enjoying it. Bachir had a lovely voice, one that was already that of a man. He knew many poems by heart. He lovingly recited Victor Hugo, with warmth Rimbaud's Le bateau ivre, and poems written by young people going into battle; he then moved on to the poets of liberty - Rimbaud again, Eluard, and Desnos. — Assia Djebar

In life you have three options with any situation that is a challenge. Remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it. — Phil McGraw

When the colonizers spoke of indigenous women - ignoring their own patriarchy, which they doubtlessly considered normal, just like today - it was always with tears in their eyes. They only referred to the differences between these two patriarchical regimes - the French one and the Algerian one - at the cost of any mention of their far more considerable commonalities. — Christine Delphy

Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there. — Ahmed Ben Bella

The simplifications of hatred and prejudice, which embitter and perpetuate the Algerian conflict, must be combated on a daily basis, and one man cannot do the job alone. What is required is a movement, a supportive press, and constant action. — Albert Camus

An animated conversation was in progress and the woman behind the counter started airing her views about a murder case that had created some stir in Algiers. A young commercial employee had killed an Algerian on a beach. — Albert Camus

The final group, on Sunday at the Masters, is the greatest feeling in the world for a professional golfer. — Phil Mickelson

I think that they participated in something that was not very proper and was very pitiful, not only for the Algerian people, but also for the other people who counted on our support. — Ahmed Ben Bella

From their point of view, I had gone too far. I had to disappear. That is to say, if the Algerian army had not overthrown me, others would have done so. — Ahmed Ben Bella

We watched the field exercises first and then sat in on a class by. Shafi Khan on classic attack formations. It was a lucid talk with ample diagrams and case-studies. — Kiran Nagarkar

To capture the drama of the unconscious, one had to start with the key, and the key was the dream. But the novelist's task was to pursue this dream, to unravel its meaning; the goal was to reach the relation of dream to life; the suspense was in finding this which led to a deeper significance of our acts. — Anais Nin

I'm an actor, full stop. Not an Arab actor. Not an actor of Algerian origin. Just an actor. — Tahar Rahim