01c. 1959 ADThe receding perspective of my past smothers my present. Remembering is the malignancy that feasts on my now.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
03c. 1959 ADIn every evocation of a childhood scene, my stepfather's face is the least detailed, the most out of focus; when I think of him my memory's eyes have cataracts.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
04c. 1959 ADI was a lonely boy. I spent all my time reading books and watching the world. [some] tried to draw me out at first, but their hearts weren't in it. And after all, they had enough troubles of their own.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
05c. 1959 ADThere are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don't.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
06c. 1959 ADLike all cities, Beirut has many layers, and I had been familiar with one or two. What I was introduced to that day with Ali and Kamal was the Beirut of its people. You take different groups, put them on top of each other, simmer for a thousand years, keep adding more and more strange tribes, simmer for another few thousand years, salt and pepper with religion, and what you get is a delightful mess of a stew that still tastes delectable and exotic, no matter how many times you partake of it.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
07c. 1959 ADOn Lou's lips a trace of pinot and out of them poured tales of acts of viciousness worthy of the great Lucifer himself, stories told through the night, the tortures, the beatings, the broken bones, every school has its Tigellinus, but his had more than one and each with followers, all-American boys who delighted in discovering how much pain a soul could withstand, two suicide attempts and all his parents and school could do was try to make Lou change his behavior, his behavior, his behavior, his, his, his, to modify his being just a bit. It gets better, Doc, fucking gets better, no one dared suggest that maybe the family and the school should change, or heaven forbid, that it was the all-Americans who should be modifying their beings, no, the homo should grin and bear it dumbly...Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
08c. 1959 ADWe rarely consider that we're also formed by the decisions we didn't make, by events that could have happened but didn't, or by our lack of choices, for that matter.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
09c. 1959 ADNo nostalgia is felt as keenly as nostalgia for things that never existed.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
10c. 1959 ADHad I known that coffee could taste so good, I would have gotten drunk on it every day.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
11c. 1959 ADBy nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
12c. 1959 ADHe may be my half brother, but we're not related. A chasm of incommunicable worlds lies between us.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
13c. 1959 ADNo matter how good a story is, there is more at stake in the telling.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
14c. 1959 ADBeirut 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 / quote ↗
15c. 1959 AD...I wondered at times whether I would wake up and this would be just a bad dream, a nightmare that I could wish away, I had the same fantasy when you were sick, Doc, that I would one day wake up and you all would be healthy and alive.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
17c. 1959 ADYou looked inhuman when you were dying, Doc, your eyes glistened like dimming stars, you were wasting away and life was leaving you piecemeal, your soul no longer fit your body, you hated it and I hated it and I couldn't recognize you and I couldn't see you and I was frightened and I never knew what to do, I looked for the man I love in you and I searched for who I used to be around you and I couldn't find either.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
18c. 1959 ADMy features have blunted with the passage of time, my reflection only faintly resembles how I see myself. Gravity demands payback for the years my body has resisted it.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
19c. 1959 ADI wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
22c. 1959 ADI also understand that you have to lie to yourself to survive in a bad marriage, you have to delude yourself if you want to carry on in this life.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
23c. 1959 ADWhat is the purpose of a city if not to grant the greatest of gifts, anonymity?Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
24c. 1959 ADI know many sports fans that don't enjoy soccer. The argument is that there's no action, not enough of it.Rabih Alameddine / quote ↗
