Rawi Hage > Quotes

“Everything about her seems to be saying, Listen, if you don’t look attentively, if you don’t go beyond my simplicity to detect the simmering volcano in me, you are not it.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“الطيور تحلّق وكنت أتوق بدوري إلى التحليق بعيدًأ”
― Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game

“We are all the products and victims of our own upbringing, until we reflect, refuse, and rebel.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“My steps were muffled. It was quiet, so quiet that I felt as if I did not walk but instead crawled in silence. The snow covered everthing and I walked above cotton, on silent carpets, on beach sand. Softness is temporary and deceiving. It gently receives you and gently expels you.”
― Rawi Hage, Cockroach

“What the fuck is legal in this universe? Stars eat each other, wolves eat the pigs, and Grandma fucks over Little Red Riding Hood.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“All libraries must submit to a certain order, I answered. Indeed, agreed the professor, or all will be lost. The fall of nations and empires begins with the fall of libraries.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“لم أكن أهرب من الحرب ، بل من فيروز وأغانيها”
― Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game

“And when Rambo whispered to me, assuring me of my nearest death, I was relieved at my parents' absence, for my death like all death should be a death and an end- no memory, no photograph, no stories and no mother's tears. In death everything should cease. All else is nothing but human vanity and make-believe.”
― Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game

“Other humans gaze at the sky, but I say unto you, the only way through the world is to pass through the underground.”
― Rawi Hage, Cockroach

“There will always be a just fight and a cause to die for.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“I waited, hesitant to go out into the cold again. It was one of those days that have no mercy on your toes, that are oblivious to the suffering of your ears, that are mean and determined to take a chunk of your nose. It was a day to remind you that you can shiver all you want, sniff all you want, the universe is still oblivious. And if you ask why the inhumane temperature, the universe will answer you with tight lips and a cold tone and tell you to go back where you came from if you do not like it here.”
― Rawi Hage, Cockroach

“Here in these circuses and carnivals we all love each other with our oddities and queernesses.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“Poor Mary. They married her to Jesus, and Jesus is an asexual circumcised revolutionary. What future is there to be had in that scenario?”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“Jazz and vodka, the fuel of resistance.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“All those who leave immigrate to better lives, but I wanted to better my death. Maybe it is the ending that matter, not the life, I thought. Maybe we, like elephants, walk towards our chosen burials.”
― Rawi Hage

“Violence and resistance are the only answer. Empire has to feel pain or it will never stop devouring you. It is only when a gun is put in a person’s face that anything changes. All empires are hungry cannibals...”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“God created each one of us with a light inside. I’ve had sex with all kinds of people; every single person has a kind of beam inside that shines once they are touched properly.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“People live their lives thinking that they are forgotten, and that is why we do the most outrageous things, so as not to go unnoticed”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“هنالك دائمًا ثمن علينا دفعه”
― Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game

“The moon should be colonised, I thought. Mankind should seek a happier beginning, and humans should be free to stroll hand in hand regardless of their weight and orientation.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“I drove through the suburbs, where all the houses looked identical, one variation of another of the same thing. I said to myself, I’d rather fire myself from a cannon, pick up the shit of elephants and eat it, suffocate inside Houdini’s water tank, lie beneath the running horses, or sodomise a big cat in a cage and pay the consequences than get trapped in these suburbs of cardboard, gossip, and conformity.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“So long, I replied, may we all have one good flight before we rest among flowers and the orbits of hungry worms.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“Never underestimate a clown with a book.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“There is a war out there, and believe me, Fly, it was never really between Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Crusaders and Confucius. The final battle is between those who love, respect, and liberate the body and those who hate it”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“I would argue that our libertine ways are better suited than any religion to protect man’s core against the devastating and tragic reality of life.”
― Rawi Hage, Beirut Hellfire Society

“There are two ways to taste things in life: the sweet way and the bitter way.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“We worship fire because it is the closest sensation to what a man feels when love exists. Fire is a passage and a dance, but its destruction brings renewal.”
― Rawi Hage, Beirut Hellfire Society

“When a woman enters my house, a tunnel of books welcomes her, a carnival of heroes bounces from every corner, and I lead her straight through the welcoming applause of writers and mice.”
― Rawi Hage, Carnival

“But Nadja sensed his intention and said, It was just a game. You take captivity too seriously. If anything, surrender will liberate you from the burden of yourself.”
― Rawi Hage, Beirut Hellfire Society

“What do the stars believe in, Zainab? Where do the dead horses go, what do the birds worship, and what do the rivers live for?”
― Rawi Hage , Carnival