I'm Lebanese Quotes & Sayings

This Levantine spirit developed gradually in Beirut after the Industrial Revolution, as the burgeoning Lebanese silk trade and the invention of the steamboat combined to bring men and women of America and Western Europe in large numbers to the Levant. These settlers from the West were Catholic and Protestant missionaries, diplomats, and merchants, Jewish traders, travelers and physicians; and they brought with them Western commerce, manners, and ideas and, most of all, a certain genteel, open, tolerant attitude toward life and toward other cultures. Their mores and manners were gradually imitated by elite elements of the local native populations, who made a highly intelligent blend of these Western ideas with their own indigenous Arabic, Greek, and Turkish cultures, which had their own traditions of tolerance. "To be a Levantine," wrote Hourani, "is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either." In — Thomas L. Friedman

The West found an excuse for every incident and boxed and labeled it under the context of the country in which it took place. They attributed Iran's conflict and the victory of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini to an inner conflict within Iran. They considered the Lebanese war a civil war among factions. They considered the overall Arab-Israeli conflict a Palestinian-versus-Israeli conflict over land. Yet in all these conflicts radical Islam was the driving force or lingered just under the surface. — Brigitte Gabriel

The [Israelis] believed - they were possessed of an absolute certainty and conviction - that 'terrorists' were in Chatila. How could I explain to them that the terrorists had left, that the terrorists had worn Israeli uniforms, that the terrorists had been sent into Chatila by Israeli officers, that the victims of the terrorists were not Israelis but Palestinians and Lebanese? — Robert Fisk

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

The Lebanese banking system helps Iran, Syria & Hezbollah evade sanctions. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

For my generation - the "Children of Nixon," as I call us in the book - the Lebanese civil war was an iconic event. Downtown Beirut became a metaphor for so many things: man's inhumanity to man, what Charles Bukowski called "the impossibility of being human." It shaped our perceptions of war and human nature, just as Vietnam did for our parents. We used it to understand how the world works. — Annia Ciezadlo

Lebanese mezze, Cantonese dim sum and Basque pinchos have all evolved over years and are designed to make sense together. — Yotam Ottolenghi

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. — Zuheir Mohsen

I am constantly swimming on the margin, neither 100% American, French, nor Lebanese. I am none of those. I am the result of those three. Sometimes it's an asset: no one can put you in a category. That I do not make typical Lebanese, European or American films does not bother me. — Ziad Doueiri

The Lebanese government has officially recognized the Armenian genocide, but nowhere is there any official memorial to the victims of the World War I famine. — Louis Farshee

The Lebanese people voted this time for change. So they are not satisfied with the actual situation. They want to see a new government. They want to see a new vision. — Rafik Hariri

When a peace agreement is concluded between the Lebanese government and Israel, we would surely disagree with the Lebanese government about that, but we would not make any turmoil out of it. — Hassan Nasrallah

America's real plan is to fuel a civil war, while the national plan is for all Lebanese to live in peace with one another. There will be no return to civil war. All the political powers as well as the media must work to reduce religious tensions and make everyone understand that they will not allow Lebanon to be destroyed again. — Hassan Nasrallah

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own ... Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland. — Bashar Al-Assad

The Syrians are trying to say that the Lebanese are not capable of ruling themselves. — Walid Jumblatt

Further, many writers and scholars speak in private, say, after half a bottle of wine, differently from the way they do in print. Their writing is certifiably fake, fake. And many of the problems of society come from the argument "other people are doing it." So if I call someone a dangerous ethically challenged fragilista in private after the third glass of Lebanese wine (white), I will be obligated to do so here. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I am Lebanese, and I know the interests of my country. — Najib Mikati

America entered the Lebanese Civil War. It paid the price. Two hundred marines were killed by one Shiite. Reagan pulled the troops and avoided discussing Lebanon. Lebanon, like AIDS, was hardly ever mentioned by our president. — Rabih Alameddine

The school remained open. I thanked Allah that the Americans operated differently. Had the Lebanese lost 241 men in one day, and had we the power and the reach, we would have American males hung from their testicles and set on fire. The frame of mind that dictates our actions quashes our ability to develop the power and reach exhibited by the Americans, I thought. — Sam Wazan

We do not covet one inch of Lebanese territory, and the basis for the peace treaty between our two countries will be the international border, which exists now, between Rosh Haniqra and Ras en Naqura. — Menachem Begin

The cedars 'know the history of the earth better than history itself.' If this was so, it was little wonder that they had clung to life only here, up in these high altitudes where the mountains, ice and wind ensured that the Lebanese who so often took the name of the cedars in vain would rarely appear. — Robert Fisk

The Depression did more to me than being a little Lebanese kid did. — Joe Jamail

My dad's half-Lebanese, my mom is full Lebanese. I'm three-quarters Lebanese. Irish-Lebanese. — Tom Shadyac

Take a look at the Supreme Court decision that just authorized an effort by U.S. claimants against Iran for terrorist acts. What are the terrorist acts? The terrorist acts are bombings of U.S. military installations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which Iran is claimed to have something to do with. Well suppose they did. That's not terrorism. I mean if we have a military base in Lebanon that while we're shelling Lebanese naval ships, the Navy is shelling Lebanese installations and somebody attacks [that's not terrorism]. — Noam Chomsky

Lebanese freedom of speech : You get to say whatever you like as long as the authorities approve of it ... Hilarious. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

The Lebanese civil war was not between the Lebanese; it was a holy war declared on the Christians. — Brigitte Gabriel

When Israelis were indirectly involved in the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, the story was front-page news for weeks. When Lebanese Shiites were directly involved in killing Palestinians in the very same camps from 1985 to 1988, it was almost always back-page news - if it was reported at all. This — Thomas L. Friedman

She looks out the window and notices the sections of Cleveland Street gone to rot, the filigreed metal balconies of the shambling terraces like rusted lacework, the grimy tiled pub facades, the windows of the Lebanese restaurants filmed with grease. This is old Sydney, her father's town of grit and mildew. The — Dominic Smith

The Syrian crisis comprises five different conflicts that cross-infect and exacerbate each other. The war commenced with a genuine popular revolt against a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, but it soon became intertwined with the struggle of the Sunni against the Alawites, and that fed into the Shia-Sunni conflict in the region as a whole, with a standoff between the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Sunni states on the one side and Iran, Iraq, and the Lebanese Shia on the other. In addition to this, there is a revived cold war between Moscow and the West, exacerbated by the conflict in Libya and more recently made even worse by the crisis in the Ukraine. — Patrick Cockburn

God willing, we shall come to a stage where the world looks at the Palestinian question, and Palestinian rights on Palestinian national soil, as well as the questions of the occupied Syrian and Lebanese territories. These are the bases on which peace will be built. — King Hussein I

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese. — Anthony Shadid

Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them. — Richard Engel

That U.N. Security Council resolution requires getting Syrian troops and intelligence officials out of Lebanon so that the Lebanese can have elections here this spring that are free and fair and free of outside influence. — Stephen Hadley

When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity. — Robert Fisk

There's a great Lebanese restaurant a few blocks over. They have the best shawarma in the world."
"What's shawarma?"
"You know what a gyro is?"
"No."
"Same thing. — Huston Piner

We have to look to the well-being of the Lebanese citizens and create prosperity in the country, and you can't create prosperity without stability. — Najib Mikati

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

I have a lot of nice Italian winter clothes that make me look like a sophisticated Lebanese professor, so my friend Robert and I go around pretending to be experts in Arabic politics. It doesn't work in the summer though. I don't have the right clothes. — Alexei Sayle

Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington; they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth. — Robert Fisk

There's this Lebanese lady I dearly loved who raised 13 children in Toledo, and she retired in Phoenix. She said, I get up every morning and say, Thank you, God. I do the same thing now. — Jamie Farr

Slavery has been outlawed in most arab countries for years now but there are villages in jordan made up entirely of descendants of runaway Saudi slaves. Abdulrahman knows he might be free, but hes still an arab. No one ever wants to be the arab - its too old and too tragic, too mysterious and too exasperating, and too lonely for anyone but an actual arab to put up with for very long. Essentially, its an image problem. Ask anyone, Persian, Turks, even Lebanese and Egyptians - none of them want to be the arab. They say things like, well, really we're indo-russian-asian european- chaldeans, so in the end the only one who gets to be the arab is the same little old bedouin with his goats and his sheep and his poetry about his goats and his sheep, because he doesnt know that he's the arab, and what he doesnt know wont hurt him. — Diana Abu-Jaber

He was not beyond knowing that they thought him - when he first arrived - a quiet patsy. The Arab. The Yank. The Judge. Your Harness. Mohammed. Mahatma. Ahab. Iron Pants. He wasn't interested in playing himself Irish or Lebanese. Not for him the simple ancestral heart: he wanted to make himself the smallest continent possible. — Colum McCann

A hakawati is a teller of tales, myths, and fables. A storyteller, and entertainer. A troubadour of sorts, someone who earns his keep by beguiling an audience with yarns. Like the word "hekayah" story, fable, news, hakawati is derived from the Lebanese word "haki", which means talk or conversation. This suggests that in Lebanese the mere act of talking is storytelling. — Rabih Alameddine

The ultimate goal is to change Syria's behaviour on a variety of issues - on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms. — Elliott Abrams

Memory,' wrote the Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury, is a process of organizing what to forget. — Ben Ehrenreich

What about Danny Thomas?" Uncle Hal asks. "What happened to him?
"Dead," Uncle Abdelhafiz says. "Nice Lebanese boy."
"Never mind about Danny Thomas, look what happened to your whole family! Look at your cousin Farouq, Great Uncle Ziad, Auntie Seena and Jimmy's son Jalal," Aunt Jean cuts in disapprovingly.
"Dead, dead, dead, and in jail. — Diana Abu-Jaber

As an inspiration for terrorism, however, nationalism has been far more productive than religion. Terrorism experts agree that the denial of a people's right to national self-determination and the occupation of its homeland by foreign forces has historically been the most powerful recruiting agent of terrorist organizations, whether their ideology is religious (the Lebanese Shii) or secular (the PLO). — Karen Armstrong

The Levantine political idea, which grew naturally among the communities of the eastern Mediterranean, was an original way of dealing with diverse tribal, village, and sectarian identities, and it inspired the Beirutis and ultimately the Lebanese to believe that they could build a modern Arab republic, melding together seventeen different Christian, Muslim, and Druse sects. — Thomas L. Friedman

Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust . But this is a new Holocaust. — Hugo Chavez

At Baalbek Nuts I bought pistachios from the Lebanese owners, who answered my request for their thoughts on the war with the typically Lebanese response of no problem. It's a lie, as we all knew. — Robert Fisk

How often have I held back my complaint: Why should the Lebanese homeland be incompatible with Palestine? Why should the Egyptian loaf be incompatible with Palestine? Why should the Syrian roof be incompatible with Palestine? Why should Palestine be incompatible with Palestine? — Mahmoud Darwish

I'm a Lebanese woman who directs films. That's not it at all. I am not really a woman nor am I really an Arab. Because I am not an apologist for women, nor of sentimental "world" films. — Danielle Arbid

For years, Lebanese have known that Palestinian camps like Nahr al-Barid and Ain al-Helwe - hopeless slums crowded with generations of disenfranchised Palestinian refugees who can't go home because of Israel, and can't work because of Lebanese laws - are awash with gunmen, criminals and, since the war in Iraq, al-Qaida inspired jihadists. — Richard Engel

"Parisienne" is about how you forge a life in a new place when you are 18. And it's about a Lebanese girl who discovers Paris and the French in the 90s, and through these encounters, discovers herself. — Danielle Arbid

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

The bin Laden I met each time was in a simple Saudi white robe, with a simple, cheap kafiya and very cheap plastic sandals. But a videotape released before September 11, which I saw on Lebanese television, had him in a gold embroidered robe. When I saw this, I thought, whoa, has this guy changed? I wouldn't have imagined him ever appearing in such golden robes when I met him. — Robert Fisk

Like most Lebanese, Joumana speaks rapidly, one sentence dovetailing into another, producing guttural words and phrases as if gargling with mouthwash. I prefer slow conversations where words are counted like pearls, conversations with many pauses, pauses replacing words. — Rabih Alameddine

I have been blessed with many curses in my life, not the least of which was being born half Lebanese and half American. Throughout my life, these contradictory parts battled endlessly, classed, never coming to a satisfactory conclusion. I shuffled ad nauseam between the need to assert my individuality and the need to belong to my clan, being terrified of loneliness and terrorized of losing myself in relationships. I was the black sheep of my family, yet an essential part of it. — Rabih Alameddine

If you want to judge if a party is a Lebanese enough, let me say we take up arms and fight against the occupation of our land, is that Lebanese enough? — Hassan Nasrallah

My mother born in Mexico, but was Lebanese in origin. She born 1902 the same year my father arrived to Mexico when he was 14 years old. — Carlos Slim

There was a president imposed by Syria. Our battle ... is to have a Lebanese president that we elect. — Walid Jumblatt

It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label "Lebanese," preferring the less restrictive "Levantine" designation. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

'Harat' is actually - it's a Lebanese dialect word. It comes from 'the mapmaker,' somebody who makes a map. And it basically means somebody who tells fibs or exaggerate tales a little bit. — Rabih Alameddine

Syria has a strategic position in the region, I don't deny her role, her alliance with the resistance or our friendship with her although that many Lebanese pretended to have forgotten that there is an enemy called Israel which is still targeting us and constituting a danger to the Lebanese people. — Hassan Nasrallah

I was a child during the Lebanese civil war, and I remember Israeli bombardments. So growing up, my view of Israel was completely negative. I'm not coming from a neutral place, but with time, I've had to re-examine my thinking. — Ziad Doueiri

You can say that Lebanese has hundreds of lexemes for family relations. Family to the Lebanese is as snow to the Inuit. — Rabih Alameddine

In May 2012 - a year after the Arab awakening erupted - the United States made two financial commitments to the Arab world that each began with the numbers 1 and 3. The U.S. gave Egypt's military regime $1.3 billion worth of tanks and fighter jets. It also gave Lebanese public school students a $13.5 million merit-based college scholarship program, putting 117 Lebanese kids through local American-style colleges that promote tolerance, gender and social equality, and critical thinking. Having visited both countries at that time, I noted in a column that the $13.5 million in full scholarships bought the Lebanese more capacity and America more friendship and stability than the $1.3 billion in tanks and fighter jets ever would. So how about we stop being stupid? — Thomas L. Friedman

Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet. — Martin Van Creveld