Quotes from Rabih Alameddine

I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic.

I always say show me a storyteller who doesn't embellish, and I'll show you a bad one.

Every writer uses his own way to motivate oneself.

I can easily hold two opposing beliefs at the same time without any problem, which I find - well, mind-expanding, really.

Language, after all, is organic. You can't force words into existence. You can't force new meanings into words. And some words can't or won't or shouldn't be laundered or neutered. Language develops naturally.

I stuck out more in an English public school than I would have had I marched in a May Day parade with the Red Army in Moscow or sashayed the Yves St. Laurent catwalk with supermodels or hunted seals with the Inuit or - well, you get the idea.

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don't.

I can make up stories with the best of them. I've been telling stories since I was a little kid.