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" The laws of the lowly gangster govern Qaddafi and his sons. "
Hisham Matar
His
Gangster
Govern
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" 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
Am
I Am
" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "
Hisham Matar
Isolation
War
Suffer
" 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
" For an overwhelming majority of my life, my country has been a source of pain, fear, and embarrassment. "
Hisham Matar
Country
Been
Pain
" 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
" Making something of loss is, on some level, satisfying. "
Hisham Matar
Making
Something
Loss
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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 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
" Switching languages is a form of conversion. And like all conversions, whether it's judged a failure or a success, it excites the desire to leave, go elsewhere, adopt a new language and start all over again. It also means that a conscious effort is demanded to remain still. "
Hisham Matar
Effort
Desire
Success
" 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
" I don't remember a time when words were not dangerous. "
Hisham Matar
Words
Remember
Time
" 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. "
Hisham Matar
Loyal
Cynical
Born
" As part of the ritual of becoming a man, my maternal uncle, a judge, and his four sons, each older than me, took me deer hunting. "
Hisham Matar
Man
Deer
Me
" 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
" 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
" Dreams have consequences. "
Hisham Matar
Dreams
Consequences
" 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
" 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
" My father believed in armed struggle. "
Hisham Matar
Believed
Armed
Father
" I think, ultimately, I am a sensualist and an aesthete. "
Hisham Matar
Ultimately
I Am
Am
" There's something very bizarre about having a father who has disappeared. It's very hard to articulate. "
Hisham Matar
Father
Something
Hard
" The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed. "
Hisham Matar
You
Space
Unique
" Throughout my entire life, I have lived in the shadow of the dictatorship. It denied me safety and security. "
Hisham Matar
Life
Security
Safety
" I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But it's not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing. "
Hisham Matar
Die
Believe
People
" My work is my shelter, particularly in these moments when things are happening fast. "
Hisham Matar
Fast
Happening
Work
" We need a father to rage against. "
Hisham Matar
Against
Father
Rage
" I ultimately write for myself and the people I love. "
Hisham Matar
Myself
Write
People