Sharif Abdel Kouddous famous quotes

I hated the culture, I hated the work. I very quickly realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do. So, after two years, I took some writing courses - I always loved to write - and I figured the only way I was going to get paid to write was in journalism. I really wasn't very involved politically with anything up until that point. Then I started reading about the second Palestinian Intifada, and I spoke to friends in activist and journalism circles. Then, somehow by complete luck, I ended up at Democracy Now.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Reading #Writing #Luck

I was three years old when Hosni Mubarak came into power. I've lived under Hosni Mubarak nearly all my entire life. Even before he stepped down, I knew this wasn't Hosni Mubarak's Egypt anymore, and regardless of what happened, it never would be again. A fear barrier had been broken. And once that barrier was broken, it would never be built again. People knew that they had this power, that they would not be pushed around again. There was just this fearlessness and determination.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Determination #People #Broken

Hosni Mubarak was the glue that held very leaderless and organic and very pluralistic mix of people together. Now that he's gone, there's a lot more debate and division about what happens next, which is healthy. We're essentially still under military dictatorship right now. The military rules the country. It can issue laws by decree.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Country #Military #People

I hated the culture [working in the bank], I hated the work. I very quickly realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do. So, after two years, I took some writing courses - I always loved to write - and I figured the only way I was going to get paid to write was in journalism.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Writing #Years #Two

I really wasn't very involved politically with anything up until that point. Then I started reading about the second Palestinian Intifada, and I spoke to friends in activist and journalism circles. Then, somehow by complete luck, I ended up at Democracy Now.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Reading #Circles #Luck

Mubarak was the glue that held this very leaderless and organic and very pluralistic mix of people together. Now that he's gone, there's a lot more debate and division about what happens next, which is healthy. We're essentially still under military dictatorship right now. The military rules the country. It can issue laws by decree.
-- Sharif Abdel Kouddous

#Country #Military #Law

He [Hemingway] used a stand-up work place he had fashioned out of the top of of a bookcase near his bed. His portable typewriter was snugged in there and papers were spread along the top of the bookcase on either side of it. He used a reading board for longhand writing.

A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.

As a general rule, I abstain from reading reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.

A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

Back in the days when American billboard advertising was in flower [said Hemingway], there were two slogans that I always rated above all others: the old Cremo Cigar ad that proclaimed, Spit Is a Horrid Word-but Worse on the end of Your Cigar, and Drink Schlitz in Brown Bottles and Avoid that Skunk Taste. You don't get creative writing like that any more.

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.

Don't take rest after your first victory because if you fail in second, more lips are waiting to say that your first victory was just luck.

With luck, a writer capable of producing both Slouching Towards Kalamazoo and The Blood of the Lamb will not remain unappreciated for long.

Gilbert Jonas, painter, believed in his star.... His own faith was not, however, without its virtues because it consisted in admitting, in some obscure way, that he would obtain many things without deserving them.