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" I get a lot of energy from making things up, which is why I feel I'm a novelist. "
Hisham Matar
I Feel
Feel
Why
Related Quotes:
" As a young boy in Libya, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the women were the most feeling and most functional part of society. "
Hisham Matar
Feeling
Women
Escape
" I admire Turgenev, Camus, Proust and Shakespeare, but I've also learnt a lot about writing from composers and artists. "
Hisham Matar
Writing
Artists
Admire
" My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast. "
Hisham Matar
Fast
Happening
Work
" I've very aware of my rootlessness. "
Hisham Matar
Aware
Very
" Like most dictators, Col Gaddafi detests the metropolis. His vision of Libya is a kind of Bedouin romantic medievalism, suspicious of universities, theatres, galleries and cafes, and so monitors the cities' inhabitants with paranoid suspicion. "
Hisham Matar
Vision
Dictators
Kind
" I ultimately write for myself and the people I love. "
Hisham Matar
Myself
Write
People
" The Arab Spring is a powerful and compelling response not only to an age of tyranny but also to the remnant chains of imperial influence. "
Hisham Matar
Only
Age
Powerful
" In the end, madness is worse than injustice, and justice far sweeter than freedom. "
Hisham Matar
Far
Injustice
Freedom
" I hope and pray that I'll be one of those fortunate people who have many, many books to write. I don't begrudge writing. I love the whole thing! "
Hisham Matar
Hope
Books
Love
" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "
Hisham Matar
Isolation
War
Suffer
" Audacity, hope, courage - the Libyans have these in abundance. But all those boring little things - like organization, building a committee - is hard; making decisions and moving ahead is hard. "
Hisham Matar
Courage
Decisions
Hope
" I sometimes wonder if I would have become a writer if what happened to my father hadn't happened. "
Hisham Matar
Father
Wonder
Sometimes
" Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising. "
Hisham Matar
Crush
Give
Like
" It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies. "
Hisham Matar
Lies
Like
Within
" The Qaddafis, father and sons, speak the grammar of dictatorship: threats and bribery. "
Hisham Matar
Speak
Father
Dictatorship
" I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. "
Hisham Matar
Rider
Sometimes
Used
" One of the dark truths about dictators - and it applies to Gaddafi - is that on some level, they love their people. But it is a strange love. It says, 'I love you for me; I don't love you for you.' That rhymes with a certain kind of Libyan father who was always certain about what was good for those around him. Those fathers lose in the end. "
Hisham Matar
People
Father
Good
" Political dictatorships take possession not just of money and belongings but of narrative. "
Hisham Matar
Just
Take
Political
" My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990. "
Hisham Matar
Political
Father
His
" There is a tendency to over-exaggerate and over-romanticise the place of a writer in a revolution. That bothers me. I think it's inappropriate. "
Hisham Matar
Me
Place
Revolution
" A revolution is not a painless march to the gates of freedom and justice. It is a struggle between rage and hope, between the temptation to destroy and the desire to build. "
Hisham Matar
Hope
Desire
Struggle
" The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.' "
Hisham Matar
Live
Lie
Logic
" When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life. "
Hisham Matar
Good
Life
Writing
" Libyans are deeply unsettled by Gaddafi and his regime's careless contempt for human life. The dictatorship is willing to employ any methods necessary to remain in power. "
Hisham Matar
Human
Deeply
Power
" Nothing we read can import new or foreign feelings that we don't, in one form or another, already possess. "
Hisham Matar
Foreign
Feelings
Nothing
" For an overwhelming majority of my life, my country has been a source of pain, fear, and embarrassment. "
Hisham Matar
Country
Been
Pain
" Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of 'Arabisation' soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as 'instruments of imperialism.' "
Hisham Matar
Project
Growing Up
Growing
" Ivan Turgenev's novella 'First Love' is one of the most perfect things ever written. "
Hisham Matar
Perfect
Most
Love Is
" I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex. "
Hisham Matar
More
Think
Speak
" I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity. "
Hisham Matar
Confident
Thought
Myself