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" 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. "

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" 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

" Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides. "

" 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. "

" When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life. "

" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "

Hisham Matar

Imagination

Interested

" 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. "

" One of the frustrations of prison life, which is also one of its intended consequences, is that the prisoner is made ineffective. He is unable to be of much use. The aim is to render him powerless. "

Hisham Matar

Prison

Consequences

" My father believed in armed struggle. "

" Making something of loss is, on some level, satisfying. "

" 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. "

" From before I was born, we Arabs have been caught between two forces that, seemingly, cannot be defeated: our ruthless dictators, who oppress and humiliate us, and the cynical western powers, who would rather see us ruled by criminals loyal to them than have democratically elected leaders accountable to us. "

" I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened. "

" The cost of Colonel Gaddafi's rule on Libyan society is incalculable. "

" 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. "

" I am, by instinct, wary of revolutions. The gathering of the masses fills me with trepidation. "

" 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. "

" My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine. "

" I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do. "

Hisham Matar

Construction

I Am

" When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States. "

Hisham Matar

Living

American

" Architecture remains a passion and a subject I'm very interested in. I learned a great deal from studying it and working in it. "

" There are two voices: the first says write; the second hardly speaks, but I know what he wants. And if I let him, nothing would get done. He hovers at the edges. "

" Whenever I was encouraged by my elders to pick up a book, I was often told, 'Read so as to know the world.' And it is true; books have invited me into different countries, states of mind, social conditions and historical epochs; they have offered me a place at the most unusual gatherings. "

Hisham Matar

Book

Mind

" 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.' "

" I am longing to see Libya rejoin the world as the internationalist Mediterranean country that it was. "

" All great art allows us this: a glimpse across the limits of our self. "

" Throughout my entire life, I have lived in the shadow of the dictatorship. It denied me safety and security. "

" In the end, madness is worse than injustice, and justice far sweeter than freedom. "

" My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast. "

" We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words. "

" The laws of the lowly gangster govern Qaddafi and his sons. "