100 Quotes by Amin Maalouf

لكل الملذات ثمن، لا تزدري تلك التي تحدد ثمنها

من أجل التوجه بإصرار صوب الآخر يجب أن تكون الذراعان مفتوحتين والرأس مرفوعاً. ولا نستطيع فتح ذراعينا إلا إذا كان رأسنا مرفوعاً. إذا شعرنا في كل خطوة أننا نخون أهلنا ونتنكّر لأنفسنا يصبح تقدّمنا باتجاه الآخر باطلاً؛ إذا كان الذي أدرس لغته لا يحترم لغتي، يكفُّ التحدّث بلغته عن كونه حركة انفتاح، ويصبح فعل تبعيّة وخضوع.

I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road... all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them.

It's the relationship I have with the world: always trying to escape from reality. I'm a daydreamer; I don't feel in harmony with my epoch or the societies I live in.

The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

During my youth, the idea of moving from Lebanon was unthinkable. Then I began to realise I might have to go, like my grandfather, uncles and others who left for America, Egypt, Australia, Cuba.

I have the profoundest respect for people who behave in a generous way because of religion. But I come from a country where the misuse of religion has had catastrophic consequences. One must judge people not by what faith they proclaim but by what they do.

You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.

Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.