Quotes from Rabih Alameddine

Beirut è la Elizabeth Taylor delle città: folle, malandata, a pezzi, sulla via del tramonto, e sempre carica di drammaticità. Sposerà anche uno spasimante infatuato che le promette di renderle la vita più agiata, nonostante non sia all'altezza.

most of us believe we are who we are because of the decisions we've made, because of events that shaped us, because of the choices of those around us. We rarely consider that we're also formed by the decisions we didn't make, by events that could have happened but didn't, or by our lack of choices, for that matter.

Never wear clothes that are bigger than you are unless you intend to grow into them. If you want to wear a great suit, either you believe it belongs to you or you'll look like you're thirteen and wearing your mother's clothes. Doesn't that make sense? It's the same in life. Never live a life too big for you. You either grow bigger to encompass it or shrink it to fit you.

Why is it that you live in such a place yet consider the world so dangerous?" "I'm an American.

Every Beiruti of a certain age has learned that on leaving for a walk you should never be too sure of returning home, not only because something might happen to you personally, but also because your home might cease to exist.

I have my writers' neuroses but not their talents.

Anna Karenina was the first time I allowed a book and its world into my house.

A girl is supposed to be ecstatic on her wedding day. According to tradition, getting married is what we live for. Hope your wedding day is soon, they say. To young girls even, barely ten years old. May we all celebrate your wedding day. What did it feel like for her, though? She waits at her father's house, all dressed up in white. The men in her family all proud, happy, one less mouth to feed, one less honor to defend.

In reality, the only true model of a successful woman was the Divine Sarah.

My Existence is Uncomfortable for People

Le melodie ascoltate sono dolci, ma più dolci ancora sono quelle inascoltate, scrisse Keats. Nessuna perdita viene avvertita più profondamente della perdita di ciò che sarebbe potuto essere. Nessuna nostalgia fa male quanto la nostalgia per le cose che non sono mai esistite.

In order to live, I have to blind myself to my infinitesimal dimensions in this infinite universe.

Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo. I was not, I was, I am not, I don't care. It is the most common text found on Roman graves.

Like most Lebanese, Joumana speaks rapidly, one sentence dovetailing into another, producing guttural words and phrases as if gargling with mouthwash. I prefer slow conversations where words are counted like pearls, conversations with many pauses, pauses replacing words.

At the heart of most antagonisms are irreconcilable similarities.

I am still more or less sane because of my evening reading.

Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us. My father and I may have shared numerous experiences, but, as I was constantly finding out, we rarely shared their stories; we din't know how to listen to one another.

Her appearance has changed as well, and I don't mean just the intense reticulation of lines and wrinkles, the true stigmata of life.

It is a choice I've made, yet it is also a choice made with few other options available.

She was socially inept, an affliction I am quite intimate with.

The men go out to greet the arrivals. A hundred men come out of the cars, some with machine guns. Shots are fired in the air. They scream, they shout, they hail the hero. The groom will be getting some tonight. The men have come to collect their prize. More men shouting, some come into the house. She stands. The strange man, the groom she has met only twice, smiles at her. She walks out with him.

The presence of another person—of any person whatsoever—makes me feel awkward,

I can relate to Marguerite Duras even though I'm not French, nor have I been consumed by love for an East Asian man. I can life inside Alice Munro's skin. But I can't relate to my own mother. My body is full of sentences and moments, my heart resplendent with lovely turns of phrases, but neither is able to be touched by another.

I was living, I thought I was content, I was told I was happy. I did a marvelous impression of a man not crushed by dread. Once I felt your warm breath on my neck, I was no longer invisible, you saw me, you always saw me. Me cogitas, ergo sum.