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Rabih Alameddine Quotes

Rabih Alameddine is a Lebanese-American painter and writer. He was born in Amman, Jordan to Lebanese Druze parents . He grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, which he left at age 17 to live first in England and then in California. A lover of mathematics, he earned a degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Master of Business in San Francisco. He began his career as an engineer, then moved to writing and painting. The author of four novels and a collection of short stories, Alameddine was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. He lives in San Francisco and Beirut.



✵ 1959

Works

An Unnecessary Woman
An Unnecessary Woman
Rabih Alameddine
The Hakawati
The Hakawati
Rabih Alameddine
Koolaids: The Art of War
Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine: 14   quotes 1   like

Famous Rabih Alameddine Quotes

“No loss is felt more keenly than the loss of what might have been. No nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

“… What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.”

Rabih Alameddine book The Hakawati

Source: The Hakawati

“The eye always fills in the imperfections.”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

“Beirut is the Elizabeth Taylor of cities: insane, beautiful, falling apart, aging, and forever drama laden. She'll also marry any infatuated suitor who promises to make her life more comfortable, no matter how inappropriate he is.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

“I opened myself to you only to be skinned alive. The more vulnerable I became, the faster and more deft your knife. Knowing what was happening, still I stayed and let you carve more. That's how much I loved you. That's how much.”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

Rabih Alameddine Quotes

“I believe one has to escape oneself to discover oneself.”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

“I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.”

Rabih Alameddine book Koolaids: The Art of War

Source: Koolaids: The Art of War

Life , Reality

“I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

Literature , Time

“I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Are we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

Sense , Animals

“I don't sit down to write something politically or to challenge stereotypes. Being who I am, almost everything I do will be political, almost everything I do will be a challenge to those stereotypes…”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: On challenging stereotypes in “Researcher Nadia Barhoum interviews Rabih Alameddine” https://belonging.berkeley.edu/alameddine (Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley)

“I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic.”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: On the unpredictability of how a written work will be received in “Rabih Alameddine: 'Right now in the west, Arabs are the other'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/09/rabih-alameddine-interview-an-unnecessary-woman-national-book-award in The Guardian (2015 Jan 9)

Literature

“If you sit with your memories, you might as well become a plant.”

Rabih Alameddine

Source: On the dilemma faced by his protagonist in The Angel of History in “Rabih Alameddine: 'I think we lose something once we get accepted'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/09/rabih-alameddine-the-angel-of-history in The Guardian (2016 Oct 9)

Memory

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