So at the heart of all things is the germ of their overthrow; the closer you are to the heart, the closer to the reversal. Nowhere to go but down. You reach the core and then you’re blown away–
AHDAF SOUEIFI now find myself looking at every sentence, every image, that purports to tell the West about the Arabs and the Muslims with this question in mind: to what extent does it feed into existing stereotypes and established prejudice?
More Ahdaf Soueif Quotes
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That narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it .
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I now find myself looking at every sentence, every image, that purports to tell the West about the Arabs and the Muslims with this question in mind: to what extent does it feed into existing stereotypes and established prejudice?
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I bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways.
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Tell me, if you thought a man had a tendresse for you, but he wasn’t doing anything about it.
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Sometimes,because we use the same words,we assume we mean the same thing
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The white foam knows nothing better than those sands which wait for it , rise to it and suck it in .but what do the waves know of the massed, hot, still sands of the desert just twenty , no , ten feet beyond the scalloped edge ?
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They’re only there to wait for the men. To love them and be loved back or not — mostly not; to be beaten up or killed; to appear as a face on the wall of Meurseault’s cell.
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She had been wrong to think it wouldn’t matter that much to him, yes,He took her for granted, of course he did , but he took her for granted – not like an old coat in the corner of a dark cupboard, as she’d put it to herself , but like the very air that he breathed .
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You know, I’ve been thinking: all the women in the books you like — Sartre and Camus and all that — they don’t really exist. Not as people.
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A shifting of responsibility? and if it is true , how much can she absorb and still remain Egypt ?
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I haven’t come to you only to take , I haven’t come to you empty handed : I bring you poetry as great as yours but in anther tongue , I bring you black eyes and golden skin and curly hair.
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But things move on and by the time you’ve plotted your position the world around you has changed and you are running -panting- to catch up.
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If people can write to each other across space, why can they not write across time too?
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And you wanted to hurry him up a little so you made a move, an unmistakable move; one that nobody could pretend had been a misunderstanding. And he – he ignored it – ignored you. What would you feel?
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It is that happy stretch of time when the lovers set to chronicling their passion. When no glance, no tone of voice is so fleeting but it shines with significance.
AHDAF SOUEIF