Beirut Blues Quotes

“I don’t want to turn into one of those pathetic creatures who are always homesick, always saying I wish I were still in Beirut. I don’t want to become like you, split between here and there. I know I’m not happy here, but why should I be unhappy in two countries?”
― Hanan Al-Shaykh, Beirut Blues

“But were they Israeli planes dropping leaflets from the sky, or “flights of birds striking us with stones of baked clay” as if we were Ethiopians threatening Mecca in the Qur’an?”
― Hanan Al-Shaykh, Beirut Blues

“Like the hostages, I can’t find any excuses for my jailers, even if some of them are rootless exiles. They change continuously as if there’s a factory producing new versions all the time. They’re like nouns and verbs ungoverned by rules, indeclinable, or arithmetical problems where numbers and logic interweave and every time the teacher and the student think of solving them together their brain cells”
― Hanan Al-Shaykh, Beirut Blues