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For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.

Amin Maalouf

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Amin Maalouf
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: February 25
Author
Journalist
Librettist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Free
Often
Also
May
Allegiances
Look
Narrowest
Looks
Imprisons
Way
Allegiance
People
Within

More quotes by Amin Maalouf

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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.
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In my prayers, I want to say: Lord, don’t be far from me, and also don’t come too close. Let me contemplate the stars on the texture of your cloth, but don’t unveil your face to me. Allow me to hear the rivers that you send running, but Lord! Lord! Don’t allow me hearing your voice
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I am the son of the road , my country is a caravan and my life is the most unexpected of voyages. i belong to earth and to the god and it is to them that I will one day soon return
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are you certain that a man's life begins with his birth?
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A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous.
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What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself
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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.
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Our ancestors derived less from life than we do, but they also expected much less and were less intent on controlling the future. We are of the arrogant generations who believe a lasting happiness was promised to us at birth. Promised? By whom?
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The identity cannot be compartmentalized it cannot be split in halves or thirds, nor have any clearly defined set of boundaries. I do not have several identities, I only have one, made of all the elements that have shaped its unique proportions.
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People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.
Amin Maalouf
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You can't say history teaches us this or that it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.
Amin Maalouf
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We are not just visitors on this planet, it belongs to us just as we belong to her, its past is ours, so is its future.
Amin Maalouf
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God, she was beautiful - my first image of the Orient - a woman such as only the desert poet knew how to praise: her face was the sun, her hair the protecting shadow, her eyes fountains of cool water, her body the most slender of palm-trees and her smile a mirage.
Amin Maalouf
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Doctrines are meant to serve man, not the other way around.
Amin Maalouf
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life is not so long that one can grow tired of it
Amin Maalouf
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Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.
Amin Maalouf
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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.
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Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices
Amin Maalouf
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... we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.
Amin Maalouf
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How do I pray? I study a rose, I count the stars, I marvel at the beauty of creation and how perfectly ordered it is, at man, the most beautiful work of the Creator, his brain thirsting for knowledge, his heart for love, and his senses, all his senses alert or gratified.
Amin Maalouf