Quotes from Eric Bogosian

And if nobody ever hears from me again, It would be okay, And if nobody ever knows where I am, I won't mind, Because I would know where I am, And than is the most important thing.

What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it. —Gabriel García Márquez

Jeff: I'm saying I don't need a limousine to know who I am, alright? Tim: Right on. You know what? He doesn't need to limo, man. Jeff: I mean, you know, at least I admit I don't know. I know that things are fucked up beyond belief and I know that I have nothing original to say about any of it, alright? I don't have an answer. I don't have a fucking message. Tim: Okay, great. Well, now he's crying. Are you guys happy?

formal declaration of jihad in Constantinople, followed by well-organized demonstrations on the streets."32 Proclamations and pamphlets were distributed.

We all know, either implicitly or explicitly, that all we really have is our place in the memories of others. We exist to the degree that we know and remember one another. Even the most isolated among us. We share a collective understanding that we are all part of a greater whole. Perhaps

He who kills even one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or openly, shall be rewarded by God.

Morgenthau quotes

many devout Muslims, particularly in the east, understood that attacking helpless people, nonbelievers or not, was contrary to the tenets of Islam. Still, a vast number of Muslims saw the pronouncement of jihad as an endorsement for killing and looting.

denial itself was institutionalized as a government function. Since 1923, the Turkish government has spent tens of millions of dollars in a concerted disinformation campaign to delude the world at large and, perhaps more important, its own people.

All memory is a form of fiction. But all fiction is a form of reality.

Legislation was passed that seemed to welcome any surviving Armenians back to their homes, and at least on paper, Christians and Jews were to be treated like any other citizens in Turkey. But this was a very cold and toxic embrace. The Turkish government was no longer engaged in an organized system of deportation, but with Kemal's endorsement, the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia would continue.

Turkish." Vocabulary was deleted, new words added. Place-names all over the country were Turkified (for example, "Smyrna" became "Izmir"), which only added confusion and another obfuscating layer to the buildup of historical sediment.

Adolf von Gordon's last words at the trial are ironic: "I should be far from passing a final judgment on Talat the man. What can be said objectively I said at the start. But I do wish to state one more thing: like many of his comrades, he certainly worked for the extermination of the Armenian people in order to create a purely pan-Turkish state; he certainly here used means that seem intolerable to us Europeans.

the Turkish language has changed so radically since the time of Kemal's "Nutuk" that a Turk living today would not be able to understand his actual words. The speech literally has to be translated for contemporary Turkish speakers. Most important, any record, history, or document created prior to 1929 is totally unreadable by all Turks

impact of this makeover has been to significantly impede historical research, and it is one of Ataturk's most devastating accomplishments.

The struggle within Turkey that continues to this day is the legacy of Kemal Ataturk's radical reformation

Kemal's former opponents in the CUP, all dead by 1930, were resuscitated as heroes in the Turkish national consciousness.

It's true she was a flower. But a flower that thrives in the wrong place is a weed.

rising tide floats all boats. And that includes the full history of the Armenians who lived within and outside the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey. The institutions of the republic, particularly its university system and judiciary, as well as its social life, can no longer exist in concert with manufactured history. The truth is easily accessible, and Turkish scholars and writers, young people using social media, anyone watching television

I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib.

I know that I'm inadequate, but I never thought that at seventeen. I thought I was doing the best I could. I thought I was being idealistic.

The world intrudes in my brain daily. Since my brain is dripping with all kinds of stuff that's out there in the world, that I can't seem to be able to shut out, it has to end up being in my work as well.

If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest.