126 Quotes by Hisham Matar

Dreams have consequences.

I've very aware of my rootlessness.

My earliest memory of books is not of reading but of being read to. I spent hours listening, watching the face of the person reading aloud to me.

It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies.

Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation.

Like most dictators, Col Gaddafi detests the metropolis. His vision of Libya is a kind of Bedouin romantic medievalism, suspicious of universities, theatres, galleries and cafes, and so monitors the cities' inhabitants with paranoid suspicion.

The Qaddafis, father and sons, speak the grammar of dictatorship: threats and bribery.

It is easy to underestimate the demands of an open heart.

In the end, madness is worse than injustice, and justice far sweeter than freedom.