Home > Author > Rabih Alameddine
161 " you can tell how well a marriage is working by counting the bite marks on each partner’s tongue. "
― Rabih Alameddine , An Unnecessary Woman
162 " It's just that our memories are rarely where we think they are. "
― Rabih Alameddine
163 " Transmuting this sandy metaphor, if literature is my sandbox, then the real world is my hourglass—an hourglass that drains grain by grain. Literature gives me life, and life kills me. Well, life kills everyone. "
164 " There are a few places on the East Coast, and maybe Los Angeles, where women understand evening gowns. The rest of the country still has far to go. "
― Rabih Alameddine , I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters
165 " I don't hesitate when buying green bananas, but I'm slowing down. "
166 " Sleep, the lord of all gods and of all men. Oh, to be the ebb and flow of that vast sea. When I was younger, I could sleep anywhere. I could spread out on a couch, sink into it, forcing it to enfold me, and disappear into the somnolent underworld. Into a luxurious ocean I plunged, into its depth I plummeted. "
167 " When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved. "
168 " I am Raskolnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita. I am you. If you read these pages and think I’m the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can’t feel my pain. If you believe you’re not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you’re unable to empathize. Like the bullet, I too stray. Forgive me. "
169 " My half brothers, like so many men and boys, have the impatience of the entitled. "
170 " Laura answered the door. She tried to smile welcome. Not an easy task. Eyes puffed, skin pallid, shirt stained. Taking care of her brother was draining the life out of her. Succubus in action. "
― Rabih Alameddine , Koolaids: The Art of War
171 " If I tell the truth—and I should, shouldn’t I?—I translate books with my invented system because it makes time flow more gently. That’s the primary reason, I think. As Camus said in The Fall: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. "
172 " Some days are not new book days. "
173 " Of course I received various permutations of the “Who will want to marry you if you read so much?” lecture, but I also had to endure the chilly “Don’t try to be so different from normal people.” Different from normal people? When I first heard that, I was sorely offended. I thought every person should live for art, not just me, and furthermore, why would I want to be normal? Why would I want to be stupid like everyone else? "
174 " When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour, which was really a good thing because any kind of noise would make the soufflé drop, and there is nothing worse than a flaccid soufflé, is there, Jezebel darling? Fallen! Fallen is the great soufflé! Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail and the fallen soufflé. "
175 " She disappears after she's fed dinner, to who knows where, and returns sometime after the sun rises, but that's an approximate schedule. She's a Mediterranean cat, after all. "
176 " Nicio pierdere nu se simte mai acut decat pierderea a ceea ce ar fi putut sa fie. Nicio nostalgie nu doare la fel de mult ca nostalgia dupa lucrurile care n-au existat niciodata. "
177 " Literature gives me life and life kills me. "
178 " Restricting choices is not always a bad thing. "
179 " remember incidents, patches of a life—actually, minor patches in a long life, and only when they intersected with mine. I see scenes—images and scenes. I know my mother only in sepia. Isn’t someone’s life more than a collection of scenes? Isn’t she more than the images I have compiled in my head? These questions may sound rhetorical, but I genuinely don’t know. I can’t tell whether my understanding of her is limited, if I can’t get to know her because of a basic deficiency of mine, or whether this is as far as any human can understand another. "
180 " My half brothers, like so many men and boys, have the impatience of the entitled. (Aaliya) "