مدينة الكلمات Quotes

“تتغير اللغة بتغيرنا، و تقوى أو تضعف معنا، و تعيش و تموت معنا”
― آلبرتو مانغويل, The City of Words

“النوم موت، و الموت نوم ، و الموتى يسكنون أحلامنا كي يتشاركوا معنا فسحتهم الخاصة”
― آلبرتو مانغويل, The City of Words

“[On religious propaganda] Proclamations, gestures, articles of clothing, talismans, et cetera, become, through this propaganda, not symbolic of a belief but the demonstration of the belief itself.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“Monsters do not remain monsters forever. This is one of the revelations that stories offer us. Caught in words, transmitted through words, put forward to serve as the point of departure for reflection and dialogue, the monsters perceived beyond the pale of society's laws can suddenly be seen in all their tragic humanity, revealed not as creatures capable of monstrous acts because they are unlike us, but because they are very much like us, and capable of the same things. These are the facts, stories tell us, and these terrible events belong to our common circle of existence. These are not inconceivable, magically evil acts: they are acts of our flesh and blood, and flesh and blood can mourn them, and remember them, and perhaps (this seems impossible and yet it happens) one day even redeem them. Language has a powerful accounting capability.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“All reading is interpretation, every reading reveals and is dependent on the circumstances of its reader.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“The identity of the city, because of the laws that define it, depends on some sort of banning or exclusion. The individual identity required the reverse: a constant effort of inclusion, a story reminding Gilgamesh that, in order to know who one is, we need two.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“What the poet tells us is that, after the ordeals and adventures, after the revelation and the loss, the king must do two things: preserve the splendor of his city and tell his own story. Both tasks are complementary: both speak of the intimate connection between building a city of walls and building a story of words, and both require, in order to be accomplished, the existence of the other.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“Since at the very start of the [Epic of Gilgamesh], the purpose of the encounter of the wild man with the civilized king was to restore justice to the city, the poem has, after all, a happy ending.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“If the Epic of Gilgamesh carries a teaching, it is that the other makes our existence possible.”
― Alberto Manguel, La cité des mots: CBC Massey Lectures

“Lesen ist eine Erinnerungsarbeit, bei der wir durch Geschichten in den Genuss der vergangenen Erfahrungen anderer kommen, als wären es unsere eigenen.”
― Alberto Manguel, The City of Words

“Geschichten sind unser Gedächtnis, Bibliotheken die Lagerstätten für dieses Gedächtnis und Lesen das Handwerk, mit dem wir dieses Gedächtnis neu erschaffen können, indem wir es rezitieren und glossieren, es wieder in unsere eigene Erfahrung rückübersetzen und so auf dem aufbauen, was frühere Generationen für bewahrenswert hielten.”
― Alberto Manguel, The City of Words