Mark Mustian > Quotes

“Time stretches and calms, but still we reach, for we belonged then. We want to know. Sometimes that knowledge is painful, or inconvenient, or even damning. But it is essential. It exposes us for what we have been, and can be.”
― Mark Mustian, The Gendarme

“The point of the story seemed to be that to think is to forget, to filter from the mind unnecessary.”
― Mark Mustian, The Gendarme

“All the world, particularly the Ottoman world, seems swallowed in a sea of disruption. A war is being fought, over what, I am not certain, by combatants I cannot identify, in places I do not know. Lives are affected - [...]. Thing will change. At some point this city may become a battlefield, or a fortress, or a mortuary. People will leave and fight, suffer and die. And then what? I squint at the nearest grave and its inscription, trace the familiar words, Allahu ekkber. God is great. Among other things, a battle cry,”
― Mark Mustian, The Gendarme

“I've always found it interesting that there is no blood test - nothing that I know of - to distinguish Armenians from Turks, Christians from Muslims, saints from sinners, the good from the bad. In the end, who really knows - maybe God?”
― Mark Mustian, The Gendarme