Ismail Quotes & Sayings

I worked with Ismail Merchant on 'The Mystic Masseur,' I did 'Sakina's Restaurant,' I've done plays, I've been on Broadway, I've done movies, I've done TV ... but nothing has had the pop culture penetrative impact as 'The Daily Show' has. It's the nature of the beast. — Aasif Mandvi

For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes. — Ismail Kadare

Every passion or wicked thought, every affliction or crime, every rebellion or catastrophe necessarily casts its shadow before it long before it manifests itself in real life. — Ismail Kadare

In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. — Ismail Haniyeh

The mixture of the Trinidadian people and the Indian people has caused a new culture to emerge. — Ismail Merchant

The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water. — Ismail Serageldin

In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror. — Ismail Kadare

A sincere call to the Almighty can change what you may have thought was impossible to change. Never lose hope. — Mufti Ismail Menk

At street corners, where walls join, I thought I could see some familiar features, like outlines of human faces, the shadows of cheekbones and eyebrows. They are really there, caught in stone for all time, along with the marks left by earthquakes, winters and scourges wrought by men. — Ismail Kadare

Not a single thought managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly changed her mind as she realised that thousands of women, after a hard week's work, or a family quarrel, or even just after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort. — Ismail Kadare

The Europeans and Americans have said the martyrdom operations are why Hamas has been put on the terrorist list. But now these operations have stopped. Did they then remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organisations? We do not launch wars. We are people resisting occupation. — Ismail Haniyeh

The idea of quick methods to success in this life or the Afterlife is a deception, unrealistic and unislamic. — Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar

small businesses have created eight million new jobs since 1990, while large ones have eliminated four million positions. — Salim Ismail

This is how things come to pass in the world,' one of the princes is supposed to have said. 'Blood flows one way in life and another way in song, and one never knows which flow is the right one. — Ismail Kadare

Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel - about 40% of the male population. — Ismail Haniyeh

Winter hurled more wind and rain at the city than it ever had before. Clouds dashed about in all directions emptying their thunder, hail and rain. The horizon was choked in fog. — Ismail Kadare

When the Israeli leaders launched their expansionist war in June 1967 they never envisaged that 40 years later they would still be haunted by the consequences. — Ismail Haniyeh

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cooking oil and olives if necessary, I didn't mean that there really would be only oil and olives. What I meant was that our people have the necessary patience to endure the current difficult situation. Palestinians would rather do without certain food items than their national rights. — Ismail Haniyeh

I thought for a long time about leaving Albania, but at the same time to play a role in its life. — Ismail Kadare

Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived. — Ismail Haniyeh

I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform. — Ismail Haniyeh

Don't ever underestimate the capacity of a human being who is determined to do something. — Edna Adan Ismail

I feel very proud that we have managed to stay together. In these forty years we have made forty-six films. Each one has brought a certain name and contribution to cinema. — Ismail Merchant

We promise you that we will not cede a single part of Palestine, we will not cede Jerusalem, we will continue to fight and we will not lay down our arms. — Ismail Haniyeh

We urge you to understand the Palestinian reality, and not to rush in and impose conditions and demands that ignore this reality and increase the suffering of the people. — Ismail Haniyeh

The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners, and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Palestine. Hamas will have a position if this occurs. — Ismail Haniyeh

Don't be distracted by the noise going on. Pause & reflect. You'll realize how much time you've wasted on all that nonsense around you. — Mufti Ismail Menk

When you strive in the way of the Almighty, you don't worry about being accepted or having the approval of others. You know your priority. — Mufti Ismail Menk

In his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil identified a hugely important and fundamental property of technology: when you shift to an information-based environment, the pace of development jumps onto an exponential growth path and price/performance doubles every year or two. — Salim Ismail

An Albanian's house is the dwelling of God and the guest.' Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one's guest. The guest, in an Albanian's life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one's father or of one's son, but never the blood of a guest. — Ismail Kadare

Whatever you do, be gentle. People might have forgiven your harsh words but they may never forget how it stabbed their heart at that time! — Mufti Ismail Menk

I know that many in Europe are unhappy with their governments' policies toward the Palestinians. — Ismail Haniyeh

If you are a serious writer or just a normal one, in one way or another, you are writing in the service of freedom. All writers know, understand, or dream that their work will be in the service of freedom. — Ismail Kadare

We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood ... We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs. — Ismail Haniyeh

Albania's future is towards Christianity, since it is connected with it culturally, old memories, and its pre-Turkish nostalgia. With the passing of time, the late Islamic religion that came with the Ottomans should evaporate (at first in Albania and then in Kosova), until it will be replaced by Christianity or, to be more exact, Christian culture. Thus from one evil (the prohibition of religion in 1967) goodness will come. The Albanian nation will make a great historical correction that will accelerate its unity with its mother continent: Europe — Ismail Kadare

I consider I've had a good day when, among the lines I've written, I've produced from my innermost core what I call 'the appearance of the pearl.' That could refer to a discovery, a sense of harmonious cohesiveness, or something like that. — Ismail Kadare

I ask the American administration not to participate in any resolution that will double the suffering of the Palestinian people. I am convinced that the American people would not want to see the Palestinians suffer the way they do. — Ismail Haniyeh

Ismail Merchant was just the most seductive, passionate, outrageous, driven, genius of a man. — Glenn Close

Having left, for various reasons, the homeland of epic, they were uprooted like trees overthrown, they had lost their heroic character and deep-seated virtue. — Ismail Kadare

The next World War will be over water — Ismail Serageldin

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away. — Ismail Haniyeh

If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world? — Ismail Kadare

Eid happens twice a year - Eid ul-Fitr or "Small Eid" marks the end of the Ramadan fasting month, and Eid ul-Azha or "Big Eid" commemorates the Prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son Ismail to God. — Malala Yousafzai

Don't let past mistakes make you lose hope of achieving good. Some of those with the worst past have made a great future for themselves. — Mufti Ismail Menk

The laws of literary creation are unique; they don't change, and they are the same for everyone everywhere. I mean that you can tell a story that covers three hours of human life or three centuries - it comes to the same thing. Each writer who creates something authentic in a natural way instinctively also creates the technique that suits him. — Ismail Kadare

In antiquity, there were three regions in southern Europe: Greece, Rome, and Ilyria. Albanian is the only survivor of the Ilyrian languages. That is why it has always intrigued the great linguists of the past. — Ismail Kadare

I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter. — Ismail Kadare

His suspicion that he was not going in the right direction tortmented him more and more. At last he had the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction, to the very end of the handful of days that was left to him, unhappy moonstruck pilgrim, whose April was to be cut off short. — Ismail Kadare

(In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.) — Ismail Kadare

The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine. — Ismail Haniyeh

This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one. — Ismail Merchant

Every Palestinian family feels the effects of the international embargo. But the more the pressure on the government grows, the more support we receive, both from the Palestinian street and from the Arab and Islamic world. — Ismail Haniyeh

Well, the musicals give emphasis to love, longing, melancholy, sadness. All of that is always there. — Ismail Merchant

Check yourself often and correct your faults. Quit blaming others. Take responsibility for your own life. That's the only way you can grow! — Mufti Ismail Menk

My heart is too valuable to allow hatred and jealousy to rent a spot. — Mufti Ismail Menk

Literature led me to freedom, not the other way round. — Ismail Kadare

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. — Ismail Kadare

Obstacles on our path are some of the tests of life. They make us stronger, better people and open up doors we had never imagined. — Mufti Ismail Menk

If Dr. Mahathir thinks that by ordering the police to act like gangsters he will frighten the people from supporting this reformation movement, he is dreaming. I think he has cut himself off from reality. — Wan Azizah Wan Ismail

We don't have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967. — Ismail Haniyeh

More than one-half of the world's major rivers are being seriously depleted and polluted, degrading and poisoning the surrounding ecosystems, thus threatening the health and livelihood of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water. — Ismail Serageldin

Two or three times it occurred to Gjorg that all these men had killed, and that each had his story. But those stories were locked deep within them. It was not just chance that in the glow of the fire their mouths, and even more their jaws, looked as if they had the shape of certain antique locks. — Ismail Kadare

The underlying problem remains the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the continuing Israeli assaults against our people. — Ismail Haniyeh

Sunday had spread all over the city. It looked as if the sun had smacked into the earth and broken into pieces and chunks of wet light were scattered everywhere
in the streets, on the window panes, on puddles and roofs. I remembered a day long ago when Grandmother had cleaned a big fish. Her forearms were splattered with shiny scales. It was as if she had Sunday in her whole body. When my father got angry, he had Tuesday. — Ismail Kadare

Today three-quarters of the Palestinian people are displaced: there are 5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the world. — Ismail Haniyeh

A mountaineer's house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests. — Ismail Kadare

He who disagrees with you could be correct whilst he who cheers you on could be making a mistake. Ponder. — Mufti Ismail Menk

(Refresher course I just completed twenty minutes ago: In the Koran, it is Ismail, Abraham's elder son by Sarah's maidservant Hagar, whom Sarah gave to Abraham as concubine to bear them a child, that Abraham takes up the mountain with plans to sacrifice. In the Old Testament it's Isaac, Abraham's younger son by Sarah herself, Abraham takes up the mountain. In this version Sarah sees Ismail playing with Isaac long before the trip up the mountain, becomes jealous about her own son's inheritance - even though the whole Hagar-Abraham thing was her idea to begin with - and forces Abraham to send Hagar and Ismail away.) — Claire Sydenham

For a writer, New York works well. Literary work is very elitist. I worked two hours a day, maximum, and the time after that was very agreeable. I walked a lot with pleasure. Those two hours augmented the day. I wrote more here than in Paris, an entire chapter of a new novel. — Ismail Kadare

We repeat today that we are with the establishment of a Palestinian state on any liberated part of Palestinian land that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people, without recognizing Israel or conceding any inch of historical Palestine. — Ismail Haniyeh

If our lives are pleasing to Allah, and our goals are things which He approves then we can expect His Divine Assistance in accomplishing them, which includes Barakah in our time. — Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar

I work only in the morning from 10 to noon. I still write by hand. I interrupt my writing when I feel that I've discovered something beautiful or, on the contrary, when I feel discontent. — Ismail Kadare

We are pushing towards the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. If there is a real project that aims to resolve the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it. — Ismail Haniyeh

Who in the world has not yearned for a loved one, has never said, If only he or she could come back just once, just one more time ... ? Despite the fact that it can never happen, never ever. Surely this is the saddest thing about our mortal world, and its sadness will go on shrouding human life like a blanket of fog until its final extinction. — Ismail Kadare

The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can't be created through decisions and initiatives. States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established. — Ismail Haniyeh

Shah Ismail had fallen victim to the rarely used, great Uzbek anti-Shiite potato and sturgeon curse, which required quantities of potatoes and caviar which were not easy to amass, and a unity of purpose among the Sunni witches which was likewise difficult to achieve. — Salman Rushdie

Can one move an empire as if it were a house? — Ismail Kadare

I'm sure things will get better. So...it's okay to stop fighting. — Yosuke Kuroda

in the future, the defining metric for organizations won't be ROI (Return on Investment), but ROL (Return on Learning). — Salim Ismail

We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie. — Ismail Merchant

A few words of Hindi appear here or there, but it's all Urdu. I feel that if the popular culture, which is what Hindi films are, uses Urdu, it's not going to diminish. — Ismail Merchant

Well, I am from India and I wanted to make films in English for the international market in India. So that was really the main thing, and then of course economically it was cheaper to make films in India. — Ismail Merchant

Sara Scherr and Jeff McNeely have given us a thoughtful, sensible book about a topic of great importance to the world. There is no food security, no poverty reduction, no environmental sustainability without transforming our agricultural practices. The book ?presents well documented cases of best practices from all over the world. It should be required reading for all concerned with agriculture, the environment, food security or just the future of our children. — Ismail Serageldin

It's about a young man who has climbed to fame and he discovers that his writing and the relationship with his wife are really more important for him than anything else. — Ismail Merchant

I could not understand how people could not like something as beautiful as the aerodrome. But I had lately become convinced that in general people were pretty boring. They liked to moan for hours on end about how hard it was to make ends meet, about the money they owed, the price of food, and other similar worries, but the minute some more brilliant or attractive subject come up, they were struck deaf. — Ismail Kadare

Why the Albanians had created the institution of the guest, exalting it above all other human relations, even those of kinship. "Perhaps the answer lies in the democratic character of this institution," he said, setting himself to think his way through the matter. "Any ordinary man, on any day, can be raised to the lofty station of a guest. The path to that temporary deification is open to anybody at any time.[ ... ] Given that anyone at all can grasp the sceptre of the guest," he went on, "and since that sceptre, for every Albanian, surpasses even the king's sceptre, may we not assume that in the Albanian's life of danger and want, that to be a guest if only for four hours or twenty-four hours, is a kind of respite, a moment of oblivion, a truce, a reprieve, and - why not? - an escape from everyday life into some divine reality? — Ismail Kadare

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly 'legitimate' state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals. — Ismail Haniyeh

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity. — Ismail Kadare

Who can say it's not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what's described here isn't the true essence of things?" He slowed down outside a door. "Haven't you ever heard old men sigh that life's a dream? — Ismail Kadare

We came to say, the Quran is our constitution, we are committed to God and his holy book. God willing, should they try to carry out their crime against the Quran, God will tear their state apart and they will become God's lesson to anyone who tries to desecrate the holy book. — Ismail Haniyeh

It's about a father and daughter and the daughter's friend and her relationship with her current husband. — Ismail Merchant

The writer is always to some extent in exile, wherever he is, because he is somehow outside, separated from others; there is always a distance. — Ismail Kadare

We need to return to the cosmopolitanism of Alexandria of yore, and marry that with the tolerance and democracy of Europe today — Ismail Serageldin

Get up to pray in the dark when all are asleep and see how your path is lit and your life begins to shine. — Mufti Ismail Menk

If only my heart could abstain
from love.

The more I seethe with desire
The more I seem to attract. — Hilda Ismail

The government can catch a hare with an oxcart! — Ismail Kadare

Muslim children should be raised with the understanding that once they hit puberty they are adults and Mukallaf (responsible for their actions). This understanding is crucial to assist them in passing the tests of youth. — Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar

Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods - the violent methods - that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world. — Ismail Haniyeh

The liberals and free people of the world will not like to see the Palestinian people living under siege. We have received indications from the international community that they will not stop their aid. — Ismail Haniyeh

They said 'ski', but they heard 'vodka'! — Ismail Kadare