Zia Quotes & Sayings

My name is Zia Rashid. — Rick Riordan

As I gather my thoughts here in order to get to the point, I am reminded of a joke Zafar made when he was still in banking. I say joke, but Zafar was always rather serious about banking and often talked about accountability, as he called it. This stuff is so esoteric, he once said, that the only people who understand it are in the business. What about regulators? I asked. Regulators, he replied, have one eye on the revolving door. Academics make money teaching traders their latest research, and politicians don't know their arses from their elbows. Can you imagine the people on a march against finance? The guy on a megaphone shouting: What do we want? And everyone answering: Specific curbs on short selling in certain circumstances. When do we want it? In phases and at appropriate times. That's the joke. It was funny at the time. — Zia Haider Rahman

destruction. Turning to God can save your life, but, in the process, it can annihilate your soul. — Zia Haider Rahman

No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamics of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need. — Zia Haider Rahman

Another guy barked orders to a small army of brooms, mops, and buckets that were scuttling around, cleaning up the city.
"Like that cartoon," Sadie said. "Where Mickey Mouse tries to do magic and the brooms keep splitting and toting water."
"'The Sorcerer's Apprentice,'" Zia said. "You do know that was based on an Egyptian story, don't you? — Rick Riordan

You see, calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. That's a Chinese proverb and they invented writing. The wisdom, in case you're wondering, is that when you get names right, you narrow the gap between you and the thing. — Zia Haider Rahman

I am too much of an imitator to be a true writer. — Zia Haider Rahman

The late King's great service for the Muslim world and his noble deeds of charity and assistance for the poor of humanity will be long remembered with reverence. — Khaleda Zia

Yes, I'd still have Sonia. And Zia. And so many other things that Karim no longer had. I'd still have the Arabian Sea and Sindhri mangoes, and crabbing with Captain Saleem, who had the most popular boat of all because his business card promoted 'Garunteed no cockroach', and, yes, there's still be those bottles of creamy, flavored milk from Rahat Milk Corner and drives to the airport for coffee and warm sand at the beach and Thai soup at Yuan Tung; yes, Burns Road nihari; yes, student biryani; oh, yes, yes, yes, and all that, and all that again. So why complain? Why contemplate words like 'longing'? — Kamila Shamsie

If Bangladesh succumbs to the rule of one family, it would be a major step backward for the region. — Khaleda Zia

At every stage, the world that breaks in through our senses struggles to find a footing in our brains. We might liken memories to the messages recorded on tape, but we mistake the message for the medium, or the other way round, for memory is the tape itself. When I listen to my memories now, I believe that all they tell me are the stories about themselves. — Zia Haider Rahman

My point is that you could think of the people you meet in your life as questions, there to help you figure out who you are, what you're made of, and what you want. In life, as in our new version of the game, you start off not knowing the answer. It's only when the particles rub against each other that we figure out their properties. It's the strangest thing, this idea in quantum physics, and yet somehow unsurprising when you consider it as a metaphor. It's when the thing interacts that its properties are revealed, even resolved. — Zia Haider Rahman

In Bilaath, I said. Bilaath, or Vilayet as it has otherwise been transcribed into English, derives from Persian and Ottoman Turkish, in which the word meant governorate or district. In Bengali, the word is used to refer to Britain. In fact, one English colloquial name for Britain, Blighty, somewhat archaic these days and mainly reserved for comedy, is derived from the word Bilaath, which was current in India in the time of the British Raj. — Zia Haider Rahman

As I reached the highest step, I turned. Spread along the platform was a mass of bobbing black hair like a long wave of silk. Suddenly I felt the first stirrings of what I would later come to recognize as kinship, a feeling that alarmed me, a sense that I was of a piece with a group of people for the most basic reasons, simple to the senses and irrational. — Zia Haider Rahman

Not long," Zia said. "I wanted to talk to you before [Carter and Amos] come back."
[Sadie] raised an eyebrow. "About Carter? Well, if you're wondering whether he likes you, the way he stammers might be an indication."
Zia frowned. "No, I'm - "
"Asking if I mind? Very considerate. I must say at first I had my doubts, what with you threatening to kill us and all, but I've decided you're not the bad sort, and Carter's mad about you, so - "
"It's not about Carter."
"Oops. Could you just forget what I said, then? — Rick Riordan

People will tell you that the world is divided into good and bad, and that I'm bad, but it's not, and I'm not. The real truth is that I make choices based on my circumstances. We all do. It trumps everything else, whether you know it or not. There has never been a good or bad. — Zia Marie

Afghanistan doesn't have the oil of the Khazars, he said, and we're not ready to prostitute our women like the Thais. Unlike the Westerner's, ours is not a spiritual poverty but a material one. When our needs in that area are met, we will not have the dilemma or crisis of Western man. — Zia Haider Rahman

Tell you what," I said. "After the testing after the Demon Days, when things settle down -"
"Things won't settle down."
"- I'm going to take you to the mall."
She blinked. "The mall? For what reason?"
"To hang out," I said. "We'll get some hamburgers. See a movie."
Zia hesitated. "Is this what you'd call a 'date'?"
My expression must have been priceless, because Zia actually cracked a smile. "You look like a cow hit with a shovel. — Rick Riordan

Does any one know the number of illegal arms in the country? — Khaleda Zia

Our memories do not visit us in chronology, and the story we form by joining up the memories involves choices with the purpose of making a whole and finding a pattern. — Zia Haider Rahman

When evil enters the world, do you think it comes with horns and cloven feet, billowing some foul stench? — Zia Haider Rahman

We are a dangerous breed, you and I. We are lock pickers. We are dangerous to others and ourselves. It is always a great risk to open a door if you don't know what's behind it. — Zia Haider Rahman

Difficult questions can have simple answers. — Zia Haider Rahman

Since when did books ever solve anything? They only raise more questions than they answer, otherwise they're just fucking entertainment, and I am not here to fucking entertain you. — Zia Haider Rahman

Her eyes were luminous gold. I wondered if that was the last color a bug saw when it was trapped in amber - and if the bug thought, wow, that's beautiful, right before it was frozen forever. — Rick Riordan

The Temple of Dendur," Zia said. "Actually it was built by the Romans - "
"When they occupied Egypt," Carter said, like this was delightful information. "Augustus commissioned it."
"Yes," Zia said.
"Fascinating," I murmured. "Would you two like to be left alone with a history textbook? — Rick Riordan

How does it taste?" Carter wondered.
Zia smiled. "Stick out your tongue."
To answer Carter's question, the tattoo tasted like burning car tires.
"Ugh." I spit a blue gob of "order and harmony" into the fountain. — Rick Riordan

It's always nice to learn a thing or two from a novel, don't you think? — Zia Haider Rahman

Yes, they mean well, but the only good that an absence of malice guarantees is a clear conscience. — Zia Haider Rahman

Afghanistan's barren, ragged desolation moaned a long dirge of ancient wonder, the earth's broken features ready to receive fallen horsemen, the lost traveller, and all the butchered tribes. — Zia Haider Rahman

Zafar argues that the greatest influence on a writer may be on her psychic dispositions as a writer. Reading Philip Roth, writes Zafar, might clear the way of inhibitions that held you back from writing about reckless desire, the temptations of power, and the immanence of rage, or reading Naipaul might convince you to seize the ego that so wants to be loved, drag it outside, put it up against a wall, and shoot it. — Zia Haider Rahman

Our choices are made, our will flexed, in the teeth of events that overwhelm us and devour us. — Zia Haider Rahman

Under Zia's regime life for women in Pakistan became much more restricted. Jinnah said, "No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women." But General Zia brought in Islamic laws which reduced a woman's evidence in court to count for only half that of a man's. Soon our prisons were full of cases like that of a thirteen-year-old girl who was raped and became pregnant and was then sent to prison for adultery because she couldn't produce four male witnesses to prove it was a crime. — Malala Yousafzai

I'm an excellent pastry chef. My pie crust is better than my Zia Rosa's. Come on back to the kitchen. I'll make a chocolate cream pie before your very eyes. I'll feed a piece of it to you by hand. And by the time I'm done, you're not going to be asking me if I'm gay anymore."
She cleared her throat, gaze darting down. "Is that so."
"It is," he said. "On your feet. Come on back to the kitchen. I mean it. I'm dead serious. It's pie time. And I am so ready for you. — Shannon McKenna

Egypt is the First Nome. New York is the twenty-first. What's the last one, the Three-hundred-and-sixtieth?" "That would be Antarctica," Zia said. "A punishment assignment. Nothing there but a couple of cold magicians and some magic penguins." "Magic penguins?" "Don't ask. — Rick Riordan

So," said Zia, "you're gonna eat your way through the whole universe, top to bottom. And then what? — Adam Christopher

I wasn't as untrusting. I had faith in the goodness of people, the perfection of love.
What happened?
Everything ends. And it's how they end that leaves the lasting effect. — Zia Haider Rahman

If I had my time again, I'd believe in reincarnation. — Zia Haider Rahman

My name is Zia Rashid." She tilted her head as if listening.
Right on cue, the entire building rumbled. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling, and the slithering sounds of scorpion doubled in volume behind us.
"And right now," Zia continued, sounding a bit disappointed, "I must save your miserable lives. — Rick Riordan

Maps, contour maps and all maps, intrigue us for the metaphors that they are: tools to give us a sense of something whose truth is far richer but without which we would perceive nothing and never find our bearings. — Zia Haider Rahman

What is the beginning of rage, the beginning of anger? Not dislike, but love. — Zia Haider Rahman

Autobiography, we know, is flawed from the moment the nib of the pen touches the parchment. — Zia Haider Rahman

In Pakistan both branches [of the Ahmadis] fell to persecutions, sanction by the state in 1984 with General Zia Ul-Haq's Ordinance XX, which forbade Ahmadis of either branch from calling themselves Muslims, their religion Islam, or their temples mosques. Under penalty of law, they could not perform the call to pryaer, pray in the manner of Muslims, quote the Qur'an or hadith, greet each other with "as-salamu alaikum," or receite the shahadah ... In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it was illegal for some people to say, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger. — Michael Muhammad Knight

Zia looked appalled. "Setne? As in the Setne? Does Carter realize - ?" "Yep." "And Thoth suggested this?" "Yep." "And you're actually going along with it?" "Yep. — Rick Riordan

I love America for an idea. The reality is important but ambiguous. In Senegal, there stands a building where slaves were stored before they were sent on to the New World. It was built in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence. I love America for the clear idea behind the cloudy reality. Without the idea, the joys of America would be mere accident, the ephemera tossed up by the hand of fate, to disappear in the wind. And what is that idea? It is the idea of hope, that grand, audacious idea that makes the Britisher blush with embarrassment. It may be an idea not everyone cares for, but it is one I need, I want. I love her for her thought, first, of where you're going, not where you're from; for her majestic optimism against the gray resistances of Europe, most pure in Britain, so that in America I feel like - I am - a sexual being. — Zia Haider Rahman

This is a miserable country, Zafar. I don't need to explain that to you. It needs help. Isn't it that simple?
Is anything that simple? — Zia Haider Rahman

The people have realized that Martial Law is not law. A regime not established by law is devoid of the attribute to dispense law. A regime which puts in a bunker the highest law in the land does not have the moral authority to say that nobody is above the law. — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

AH, MY THREE FAVORITE WORDS: Carter, shut up. Zia — Rick Riordan

What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging. — Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

It is no consolation to reflect that every cause itself is an effect, making the search for causes and reasons a fool's errand. — Zia Haider Rahman

That's right, Sadie. For our first real date, I picked up Zia in a boat pulled by a deranged griffin. So what? Like your dates aren't weird? — Rick Riordan

love America for the clear idea behind the cloudy reality. Without the idea, the joys of America would be mere accident, the ephemera tossed up by the hand of fate, to disappear in the wind. And what is that idea? It is the idea of hope, that grand, audacious idea that makes the Britisher blush with embarrassment. — Zia Haider Rahman

Shigri boy lost his marbles in the end but the plane General Zia is about to board has enough VX gas on it to wipe out a village. — Mohammed Hanif

A regime that can suspend or abrogate the constitution and run the country on its whims and caprice should be ashamed of bringing on its lips the word "law". It is like prescribing a punishment for adultery after raping the country. It is like saying that Holy Quran is suspended nobody can escape from the Hadees. — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

The best change you can make is to hold up a mirror so that people can look into it and change themselves. That's the only way a person can be changed." By looking into yourself," Zia said. "Even if you have to look into a mirror that's outside yourself to do it." "And you know," Maida added. "That mirror can be a story you hear, or just someone else's eyes. Anything that reflects back so you can see yourself in it. — Charles De Lint

But that delusional urge is only one of the varieties of self-deception that encourage us to believe we know another human being and, for that matter, ourselves. This faith in having the measure of others really becomes unstuck when you begin to consider how many you'd acknowledge as having the measure of you. That number dwindles before your eyes. — Zia Haider Rahman

General Zia brought in Islamic laws which reduced a woman's evidence in court to count for only half that of a man's. — Malala Yousafzai

The sanction of force stands behind the medley of personal orders and regulations of Martial Law. The sanction of the people's consent stands behind the hierarchy of laws. In one situation, the population is regimented into acquiescence. In the other, the population voluntarily establishes a contract with Parliament. For this reason, one is called a regime and the other, a government. Martial law rests on the sanction of force and not on the sanction of law. — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

We're not put on this earth to fuck around. We have to make something of our lives. — Zia Haider Rahman

Listening is hard, as my friend once said, because you run the risk of having to change the way you see the world. — Zia Haider Rahman

Somewhere behind me, Zia yelled, "Hippo!" Which I thought was a little late.

~Carter Kane — Rick Riordan

Every man, he said, carries his own pyre. — Zia Haider Rahman

Pointing to the sandstone buildings around us, some of which had stood there for several hundreds of years, she commented on how old everything in Oxford looked. Can't they afford anything new? she asked earnestly. — Zia Haider Rahman

We don't need magic to change the world. — J.K. Rowling

It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy. — Khaleda Zia

Everything new is on the rim of our view, in the darkness, below the horizon, so that nothing new is visible but in the light of what we know. — Zia Haider Rahman

Hapi?" I asked.
"Why, yes, I am happy!" Hapi beamed. "I'm always happy because I'm Hapi! Are you happy?"
Zia frowned up at the giant. "Does he have to be so big?"
The god laughed. Immediately he shrank down to human size, though the crazy cheerful look on his face was still pretty unnerving.
"Oh, Setne!" Hapi chuckled and pushed the ghost playfully. "I hate this guy. Absolutely despise him!"
Hapi's smile became painfully wide. "I'd love to rip off your arms and legs, Setne. That would be amazing!"
Setne ... drifted a little farther away from the smiling god.
"Oh!" Hapi clapped excitedly. "The world is going to end tomorrow. I forgot!"
"You'd never get to Memphis without my help. You'd get torn into a million pieces!"
He seemed genuinely pleased to share that news. — Rick Riordan

Oh, god," I said. "Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?"
Sadie to Zia — Rick Riordan

We take much for granted, much that is granted by others, and we're told to do as we're told, and we agree. And we must agree. — Zia Haider Rahman

You think people never say what they mean. The truth is, nine times out of ten what they say is all they mean. — Zia Haider Rahman

I'll let you and Zia have some quality time," she told me. "Just the two of you and your coat. — Rick Riordan

Then, as now, I believe that the English use language to hide what they mean. — Zia Haider Rahman

Now the tattoos," Zia announced. "Brilliant!" I said. "On your tongue," she added. "Excuse me? — Rick Riordan

Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands? — Zia Haider Rahman

Factors affecting effective regional cooperation are mindsets and perceptions emanating from the past. — Khaleda Zia

Zia turned toward us, her expression grim. "I will show you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it."
I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I exchanged an uneasy look with Sadie.
"Sounds fun," Sadie ventured. "And it we fail this test?"
Zia regarded her coldly. "This is not the sort of test you fail, Sadie Kane. You pass or you die. — Rick Riordan

that the truth is finer and that the only answers each of us hears are to the questions we are capable of asking. — Zia Haider Rahman

I woke to a bucket of ice water in my face.
"Sadie! Get up," Zia said.
"God!" I yelled. "Was that necessary?"
"No," admitted Zia. — Rick Riordan

An exile, said Zafar, is a refugee with a library. — Zia Haider Rahman

How many senators have taken their conception of what America can do from what they've seen on the American movie screen? — Zia Haider Rahman

as a safety valve to preserve Indian democracy, the basic structure doctrine in Kesavananda should live on. — Zia Mody

Wisdom is the fruit that ripens when, with crazy courage, we plant ourselves in the garden of radical unknowingness. It is the deep breath that accompanies the willingness to not know, to rest in the mystery, to abide in surprise and allow the sacred to reveal itself in its terrible beauty and startling ordinariness. To be wise is to come undone and pay attention to the dismantling and celebrate what rises from the annihilating depths of love's fire. — Pir Zia Inayat Khan

I passed by General Zia's tomb and knew that I never would have become Muslim if I was raised in this country [Pakistan]. As a rebellious American adolescent, I had chosen Islam because it was the religion of Malcolm X, a language of resistance against unjust power. But in Pakistan, Islam was the unjust power, or at least part of what kept the machine running. Pakistan's Islam was guilty of everything for which I had rebelled against Reagen-Falwaell Christianity of America. — Michael Muhammad Knight

I had a friend at Princeton, a Russian graduate student. He had a cute message on his answering machine, delivered in his thick Russian accent: Who are you and what do you want? Some people spend a lifetime trying to answer these questions. You, however, have thirty seconds. My father and I chuckled. What happened to him? Gone. My point is that you could think of the people you meet in your life as questions, there to help you figure out who you are, what you're made of, and what you want. In life, as in our new version of the game, you start off not knowing the answer. It's only when the particles rub against each other that we figure out their properties. — Zia Haider Rahman

The generals who had called Zia a mullah behind his back felt ashamed at having underestimated him: not only was he a mullah, he was a mullah whose understanding of religion didn't go beyond parroting what he had heard from the next mullah. A mullah without a beard, a mullah in a four-star general's uniform, a mullah with the instincts of a corrupt tax inspector. — Mohammed Hanif

Vote for me and I will ensure that everyone gets enough to eat and a place to stay. — Khaleda Zia

What about King Tut's tomb?" I protested.
"That boy king?" Zia rolled her eyes. "Boring. You should see some of the good tombs. — Rick Riordan

Sadie and Bes laughed like crazy. Me, I was too busy yelling, "Crevice! Look out! Flaming geyser! Go left!" Call me practical. I wanted to live. I grabbed Zia's hand and tried to hang on. — Rick Riordan

Then there were the shabti, magical figurines that were supposed to come to life when summoned. A few months ago, I'd fallen for a girl named Zia Rashid, who'd turned out to be a shabti. Falling in love for the first time had been hard enough. But when the girl you like turns out to be ceramic and cracks to pieces before your eyes - well, it gives "breaking your heart" a new meaning. — Rick Riordan

Zia," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?"
Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames - a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. "I am a scribe in the House of LIfe, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. — Rick Riordan

That's another argument for writing: making something that outlasts you. — Zia Haider Rahman

With Zia's controversial demise in 1988, Jinnah was finally spared the false beard Zia kept pinning on the founder's otherwise clean-shaven face. — Nadeem Farooq Paracha

Advisers were numberless in Kabul, like stray dogs in Mumbai. — Zia Haider Rahman

I am as impressed by honesty as anyone, but when there is a hint that a man is taking me into his confidence, my first instinct is to suspect him. Am I to be flattered? And is he about to break another's confidence? — Zia Haider Rahman

He, like so many of them, came from that breed of international development experts unsparing in its love for all humanity but having no interest in people. — Zia Haider Rahman

Zia's senile grandfather? Nope. That was Ra, god of the sun, first divine pharaoh of Egypt and archenemy of Apophis. Last spring we'd gone on a quest to find him and revive him from his twilight sleep, trusting he would rise in all his glory and fight the Chaos snake for us. — Rick Riordan

The nation voted us to power to see unity and communal harmony, not for any division or communality. — Khaleda Zia

The whole thing is too abstract, continued Zafar, this business of our lives standing for something else. All we know is that we don't want it to stand for nothing. So we dive headlong into becoming heroes, becoming the big swinging dick on Wall Street or the rock star or the hot-shot human rights lawyer. Which is about making our lives stand for something that our intelligence can grasp, saving us from confronting what we fear might be true - or what we would fear if we gave ourselves the chance - namely, that we're accidental pieces of flesh, mutton without meaning. — Zia Haider Rahman

The bombers were enemies of Islam and enemies of the country. We will do everything and anything needed to stop them. — Khaleda Zia

Southeast Asia is now a region full of hope because of the freedoms America has helped foster. — Khaleda Zia