Marcello Di Cintio > Quotes

“East Germany brought down their wall in 1989 as a sign of surrender. The Soviet experiment had failed, and the Eastern bloc realized they couldn't win the Cold War. The falling Berlin Wall was their white flag. The walls I'd visited, though, expressed the opposite. The rising of these walls was the surrender. The walls stood as evidence that their conflicts were unwinnable and permanent. When diplomacy and negotiation crumbles, when the motivation to find solutions wanes and dies, when governments resign themselves to failure, the walls go up. Instead of trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we build a wall. Instead of finding a way for Catholics and Protestants to live together in Belfast, we build a wall. Instead of addressing the despair that leads migrants across our borders, we build a wall. The walls admit our defeat. We throw up a wall right after we throw up our hands.”
― Marcello Di Cintio, Walls: Travels Along the Barricades

“Regardless of the horrors one endures, a true writer always values humanity over revenge and peace over war. "If a writer says that he wants to kill others, the he is not a writer," Asmaa said.”
― Marcello Di Cintio, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense

“When I had those small children, I didn't have to go out and meet people. I can create my own mood at home with my children," she said. "It creates balance for me somehow.”
― Marcello Di Cintio, Pay No Heed to the Rockets: Palestine in the Present Tense

“Human civilization has always been preoccupied with erecting walls.”
― Marcello Di Cintio, Walls: Travels Along the Barricades