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" As teenagers, a lot of us just did not want much to do with Arabic culture - we looked to the West. "

Rabih Alameddine

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" A phoenix, Beirut seems to always pull itself out its ashes, reinvents itself, has been conquered numerous times in its 7,000-year history, yet it survives by both becoming whatever its conquerors wished it to be and retaining its idiosyncratic persona. "

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" Close friends consider me a literary snob. "

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" I jokingly say if there was one great thing about, you know, the Lebanese Civil War was that it forced me to read. "

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" In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English. "

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" I couldn't tell the truth if my life depended on it. "

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" We seem, particularly over here in the West and in America in particular, to have forgotten that we are, in large measures, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. "

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

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" My father and I rarely saw eye to eye when I was growing up. We saw the world differently. It was only when we were both adults that we were able to share spectacles. However, football, and particularly the World Cup, was when we, enemy combatants, could traverse trenches and be together. "

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" If you go through any culture that has had wars, go to the bomb shelters, and you'll hear some amazing stories. Yes, it's a necessary thing that we actually both distract ourselves and it's a way to bond. "

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" There are over 1 million refugees in Lebanon, a country of 4 million people. How do we solve that? I have no idea. What's going on, I really don't know. "

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" When I wrote my first book, 'Koolaids,' I felt rejected and not wanted. "

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" Nobody ever calls me a soccer-playing writer, even though I play soccer and it's part of who I am. "

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" In Lebanon, there are completely different opinions and values in one country in terms of religion, modernity, tradition, East and West - which allows for a kind of intellectual development not available anywhere else. "

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" Every writer uses his own way to motivate oneself. "

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" In the summer of 1988, my father took me up to look at the remains of our home, the dream house that he'd built. It was my first time since our family left four years earlier. Political and obscene graffiti covered the half-torn walls. There was no ceiling and surprisingly no floor: the parquet, the stone, the marble, all looted. "

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

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" A soccer game is a Wagner opera. The narrative sets up, the tension builds, the music ebbs and flows, the strings, the horns, more tension, and suddenly a moment of pure bliss, trumpet-tongued Gabriel sings, and gods descend from Olympus to dance - this peak of ecstasy. "

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

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" I read Shakespeare when I was 14 because it's what we were taught. "

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" Nobody ever said I'm a simple personality. "

Rabih Alameddine

" 'Harat' is actually - it's a Lebanese dialect word. It comes from 'the mapmaker,' somebody who makes a map. And it basically means somebody who tells fibs or exaggerate tales a little bit. "

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" I loved problems on paper, and I was good at math, but I was a mechanical engineer, and I never understood - or cared to - how a car worked. "

Rabih Alameddine

" If I were to pray in Arabic, I'd pray to Allah. If I were to pray in English, I'd pray to God. "

Rabih Alameddine

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

Rabih Alameddine