We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled Quotes

“We know that freedom has a price. Democracy has a price. But maybe we paid a price that is higher than freedom and higher than democracy. There is always a price for freedom. But not this much.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“I remember we crossed a bridge and it trembled underneath our feet because we were so many people.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Hey, Mom, what’s new?” “By God, today it’s raining and foggy.” “Foggy” meant security forces were present. “Raining” meant they’re shooting. “Storms” meant shelling. And we were saying all of this in the heat of summer!”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Today, the word “refugee” is used in a horrible way. It’s something either to be pitied or blamed for everything. Overpopulation? It’s the refugees. Rents going up? It’s the refugees. Crime? It’s the refugees. If you label people refugees, they remain refugees for the rest of their lives.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“I swear, in Syria nobody used to ask whether you’re Muslim or Christian. We had no idea what religion our friends were.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“if the world had helped us from the beginning, we never would have reached this point. Some think that we’re religious fundamentalists. But nobody forces me to fast during Ramadan.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“This is when we lost our humanity. I’d open my phone and look at my contacts and only one or two were still alive.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“For many Syrians, the start of a new life in Europe was the third in a succession of traumas. The trauma of war was followed by the trauma of a death-defying journey, only to be eclipsed by the trauma of disappointed expectations upon arriving in the West.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“...no country in the world is paying attention to me. Not a single one is doing anything to protect any fraction of the rights that I should have as a human being living on earth. I'm not saying that the conscience of the international community is asleep. I'm saying that conscience doesn't exist at all.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Many people aren’t happy with the refugees coming to their country. Maybe we came illegally, but every other door was shut in our faces. What do they expect us to do? Isn’t it enough our government destroyed us and we lost everything? We would prefer to stay in our country. If you don’t want refugees, help us make peace in Syria.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“We’ve accepted the fact that we need to make our dreams smaller if that’s what it takes to keep dreaming.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“But I think I’m too old to dream now. In a month and a half, I’ll be twenty-nine.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“What’s crucial in this whole process is that you don’t matter. You as an individual—your aspirations, your ideas about what is right—mean absolutely nothing. And that’s when you understand why people get radicalized. I completely understand why somebody would join ISIS or al-Qaeda or the Assad regime or the Kurdish groups. You are in dire need for a narrative that can justify this futility. There has to be a point. So you become radical. This suffering has to be for a reason. Otherwise it’s too painful.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Just because you’re fighting evil doesn’t mean you’re good. And just because you’re doing evil doesn’t mean you’re bad. You end up with the conclusion that there is no ultimate right or wrong. It’s all shades of gray.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Arabs used to produce science and algebra and now we’re famous for killing.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Many people aren’t happy with the refugees coming to their country. Maybe we came illegally, but every other door was shut in our faces. What do they expect us to do?”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“If I’d known this was life here I would have stayed in Syria and handed myself over to ISIS. It’s better to die once than die slowly every day.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Hama today is nearly without men. There are only women and old people. My sister calls it “the Widow City.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“But we haven’t come looking for safety. We’re not afraid of death.” And it’s true. We don’t have a problem with death. Our problem is life without dignity.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“There’s nothing to protect us. No state, no government, no law, no human rights. Animals have more rights than we do.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Every lawyer told me, “We’ll get him out.” But they were just lying so I would keep paying them.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“I lived through rockets that would explode children into a million pieces. Sometimes we’d clean up body parts with our own hands. There wouldn’t be a whole body to pick up. Just a hand or a leg or a head.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“But even a monster has hope. He hopes that someday he’ll go back to being a normal human being.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“There was one child from the camp with polio. He used to come and say to me, “When I was a little kid . . .” And he was only ten years old.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“I can’t sleep without the sounds of bombs or bullets. It’s like something’s missing.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Blood is what moves people. Blood is the force of the revolution.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“Hopelessness is seeing someone else who has been there for eight months and hasn’t been asked a single question and is just begging to be convicted and executed already.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“You can’t imagine how he died. His toenails were ripped out. His bones had been pierced with a drill. There were marks from being beaten and burned. His nose was beaten so severely that it was flat.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“The regime was basically doing everything possible to put sects against each other and create a toxic environment, where nobody trusts anybody and nobody knows who’s in control. Every side had its own enemy. For Alawites, the enemy was extremist radicals. For Sunnis, it was the shabeeha.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria

“The more someone supported the regime, the more he was scared of it.”
― Wendy Pearlman, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria