Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" In the end, madness is worse than injustice, and justice far sweeter than freedom. "
Hisham Matar
Far
Injustice
Freedom
Related Quotes:
" I am longing to see Libya rejoin the world as the internationalist Mediterranean country that it was. "
Hisham Matar
See
Longing
World
" When a dictatorship imprisons someone or makes them disappear, it's actually a very strategic move. We forget that. It's not as senseless as it seems. It's a way to silence someone, but also it's a way to silence their family as well, out of fear, and society by extension. "
Hisham Matar
Fear
Silence
Society
" My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not. "
Hisham Matar
Brother
Need
Person
" 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
" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "
Hisham Matar
Imagination
Interested
Like
" I think, ultimately, I am a sensualist and an aesthete. "
Hisham Matar
Ultimately
I Am
Am
" Nothing makes you feel more stupid than learning a new language. You lose your confidence. You want to disappear. Not be noticed. Say as little as possible. "
Hisham Matar
Language
Stupid
Learning
" The laws of the lowly gangster govern Qaddafi and his sons. "
Hisham Matar
His
Gangster
Govern
" I've very aware of my rootlessness. "
Hisham Matar
Aware
Very
" My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast. "
Hisham Matar
Fast
Happening
Work
" 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'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
" 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
" My father believed in armed struggle. "
Hisham Matar
Believed
Armed
Father
" The romantic idea of the penniless writer is false. It's terrible. I hated being in debt. I hated the anxiety of not knowing whether we could pay our rent that month. Thankfully, I had a wife who was very supportive and had faith and shared my madness. "
Hisham Matar
Madness
Romantic
Wife
" Gaddafi's ability to have survived so long rests on his convenient position in not being committed to a single ideology and his use of violence in such a theatrical way. "
Hisham Matar
Violence
Way
Single
" When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life. "
Hisham Matar
Good
Life
Writing
" My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian. "
Hisham Matar
Family
Accent
Missed
" There's always a problem when you write, something you're trying to resolve, and sometimes a view can be inspiring. "
Hisham Matar
Sometimes
Problem
You
" My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990. "
Hisham Matar
Political
Father
His
" My best hope is that Libya turns into a peaceful, sensible country that has all the things my father and lots of others have been calling for: independence of the courts and press, a protected and democratic constitution, with different parties involved in a healthy and open debate. "
Hisham Matar
Hope
Best
Debate
" 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
" When you've been living in hope for a long time as I have, suddenly you realize that certainty is far more desirable than hope. "
Hisham Matar
Long Time
Hope
You
" We have defeated Gaddafi on the battlefield; now we must defeat him in our imagination. We must not allow his legacy to corrupt our dream. Let's keep focused on the true prize: unity, democracy, and the rule of law. Let's not seek revenge; that would diminish our future. "
Hisham Matar
Imagination
Unity
Future
" There's something very bizarre about having a father who has disappeared. It's very hard to articulate. "
Hisham Matar
Father
Something
Hard
" 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
" In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home. "
Hisham Matar
School
Got
Home
" Turgenev's achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy. "
Hisham Matar
Achievement
Work
Silence
" I am, by instinct, wary of revolutions. The gathering of the masses fills me with trepidation. "
Hisham Matar
Gathering
I Am
Instinct
" Some of the most powerful memories are those when you are very, very young. Adult life is seen through the reflection of complex, rational thought. "
Hisham Matar
Life
Powerful
Reflection