Anatomy of a Disappearance Quotes

“I wanted to wear her as you would a piece of clothing, to fold into her ribs, be a stone in her mouth.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“I wanted this world to still. I wanted to fix it and be fixed within it. But everything was on the move, the clouds, the wind...”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“There and then, sitting beside her and within the strength of my adoration, I felt invincible.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“The world had to be sliced into hours to fill; otherwise you could go mad with loneliness.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Is the heart always failing itself or by nature unfaithful?

I had to restrain myself from writing to her too often, especially because she rarely wrote back or responded with the speed and in the manner I had allowed myself to expect. Some people manage to escape the obligation a sincere letter places on them.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“There are times when my father’s absence is as heavy as a child sitting on my chest.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“There has not been a day since his sudden and mysterious vanishing that I have not been searching for him, looking in the most unlikely places. Everything and everyone, existence itself, has become an evocation, a possibility for resemblance. Perhaps this is what is meant by that brief and now almost archaic word: elegy”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Suddenly he is beside me. I do not know how, but we are the same age. There is something tragic about this fact.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“If we were all engaged in some conversation, she would direct most of her contributions towards me, as if I were the front wall of a squash court.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“كل ما أحببته وكل ما فقدتُه كان هنا ذات يوم. والآن أصلُ إلى غياب، وقد رحل الجميع.”
― ﻫﺷﺎﻡ ﻤﻃﺭ, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“تعرّفتُ فيها على جُزءٍ مِني. لقد كنا الناجين، هؤلاء المكتوب عليهم أن يُتركوا.”
― ﻫﺷﺎﻡ ﻤﻃﺭ, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“I wanted everything good in the world for him; every dream he had, all of his secret plans, to come true. I suddenly was glad that Mona was his.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“At that time I would read passages of Father's books or a newspaper article that I was certain he had read because I wanted to follow a trail he had taken.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Everything I loved and all of what was lost was once here. And now I was arriving into absence, after everyone had gone.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“You see, most men spend a lifetime trying to understand their fathers.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“I felt dizzy, as if comprehending the scale of things for the first time and with it the vast yet intricate reality of the physical world and my precarious presence in it. I held my head and stared at the blades of grass at my feet. I counted the stitches round the leather of my shoes. I wanted this world to still. I wanted to fix it and be fixed within it. But everything was on the move, the clouds, the wind.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“And whenever someone said something about how racist the English were or expressed, in that subtle way, self-satisfaction at the fact that they counted among their friends a dark-skinned Arab, I simply pretended, in the way one does when an old person farts out loud, that I had not heard.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, in order to qualify for my allowance, I had to be engaged in studies leading to a PhD, “in any subject except business or political science, because both politics and business benefit from an indirect education.” I remembered how Father used to say “a man must not take up employment until he has completed his education.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Her cold-blushed cheeks seemed the only color in the gray arrivals lounge.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“Why must all horrible things take place early in the morning? I wondered.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“sarcasm, more often than not, hides a secret fascination.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“It was one of those English days suspended between the seasons: the air temperate yet alive to the coming winter.”
― Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“يكون من الأفضل أحياناً ألا نعرف".

"بعض الأشياء يصعب ابتلاعها.”
― ﻫﺷﺎﻡ ﻤﻃﺭ, Anatomy of a Disappearance

“وراح يغمغم قائلاً إنه من الآن لن تعود الحياة كما كانت فيما سبق، وإن الله قطع شجرته الوحيدة وملجأه الوحيد.”
― ﻫﺷﺎﻡ ﻤﻃﺭ, Anatomy of a Disappearance