"History belongs to she who holds the pen...If we don't tell our stories, they won't be told."

“I heard friends and strangers saying, "You don't look Arab - what are you supposed to be?" It really is a tired old problem for children of immigrants and kids of mixed race, constantly trying to explain yourself. Eventually, you give up and say, "Okay, what do you think I am?" When you're in the midst of it, you come to understand that "race" is a loose social construct, a series of visual impressions, and that your identity can be whatever the hell crazy thing you want it to be, you just have to grow a sense of humor and cultivate selective deafness.”

Source : Source: www.guernicamag.com

“The sequoias belong to the silences of the milleniums. Many of them have seen a hundred human generations rise, give off their little clamors and perish. They seem indeed to be forms of immortality standing here amoing the transitory shapes of time.”

“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.”

Source : "The Turquoise Lament". Interview with John D. MacDonald, 1973.

“The [Frank] Sinatra interpretation of the music, as opposed to some other music that you were listening to - where you felt like they were singing at you - you felt Sinatra was singing to you. It's a very intimate art form, and that's what I responded to - the intimacy of his performance.”

“The first lady in my life, but now you're gone, I learned through the years to keep carrying on. Your picture brings me tears and memories, The way things could be...and they should be, but they're not.”

“That was madness. You're never going to bring one of those down with a handgun.”

“It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.”

Source : Robert Cormier (1998). “Heroes: A Novel”, Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers

“There is a cultural factor promoting violence which nowadays undoubtedly is highly effective is the mass media. And particularly everything that enters our minds through pictorial media.”

Source : Alva Myrdal, Cecilia Åse, Yvonne Hirdman (2002). “"Något kan man väl göra: texter 1932-1982”