Asghar Husain Quotes

Everyone wants Kashmir but no one wants Kashmiris.
Aren't I a miracle? A seed that survived the slaughter & slaughters to come.
I think I believe in freedom I just don't know where it is.
I think I believe in home, I just don't know where to look. ~ Fatimah Asghar

If Husain (as) had fought to quench his worldly desires ... then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam. ~ Charles Dickens

Ironically, support for the idea of Pakistan was strongest in regions where
Muslims were a minority and Jinnah, as well as most of his principal lieutenants, belonged to areas that would not fall in Pakistan. To emerge as chief negotiator on behalf of Muslims, Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League had to prove their support in the Muslim majority provinces. 'Such support', Jalal points out, 'could not have been won by too precise a political programme since the interests of Muslims in one part of India did not suit Muslims in others.' Jinnah invoked religion as 'a way of giving a semblance of unity and solidity to his divided Muslim constituents'. ~ Husain Haqqani

Working with children is very different than the way in which I work with adults. I never tell the children the actual truth of the thing that I want them to act. Although children are really into play and play acting, and this is a major part of their existence, they never actually find the playing or acting of adults credible. ~ Asghar Farhadi

I kept on trying to use so many media and ideas in my work because our horizon is so vast and Indian culture is so rich that I think what we are today, culturally, we have a unique position and I don't think one lifetime is enough to encompass it. ~ M. F. Husain

But insecurity remains the hallmark of Pakistan's political and intellectual conversation. Even a comment about, say, Pakistan's relatively low ranking among nations for book readership, is portrayed as an attack on the idea of Pakistan. ~ Husain Haqqani

...it was perfect. But it was bittersweet too. Because I was running out of time. I wished I could stay in Iran. I wished I could go to school with Sohrab, and play soccer/non-American football every day, though I supposed I would have to start calling it regular football. I wished I could have been born in Yazd. That I could have grown up with Sohrab and Asghar and even Ali-Reza and Hossein. ~ Adib Khorram

Mujāhada, a collateral form of jihād (the so-called "holy war"), taken [by Sufis] to mean "earnest striving after the mystical life." The term is based on the Koranic text, "And they that strive earnestly in Our cause, them We surely guide upon Our paths." A Tradition makes the Prophet rank the "greater warfare" (al jihad al-akbar) above the "lesser warfare" (al jihad al-asghar, i.e., the war against infidelity), and explain the "greater warfare" as meaning "earnest striving with the carnal soul" (mujāhadat al-nafs). ~ A.J. Arberry

Moving the body resolves nothing- sadness, after all travels in the mind. ~ Shahrukh Husain

When we talk about self-confrontations, we are speaking about moral issues rather than social issues. ~ Asghar Farhadi

Throughout the Arab and Islamic world the feeling is that we are now in top gear for a war of civilizations, a clash of civilizations. Support for the United States is very low and there are no voices within the Muslim world, except for a very few. ~ Husain Haqqani

I gained a great deal from the period during which I worked in theater and I value those things a great deal. ~ Asghar Farhadi

The focus should be on Indian atrocities in Kashmir, not on our support for the Kashmiri resistance. ~ Husain Haqqani

The true seekers pursued their goal so single-mindedly, they felt no urge to tamper with the faith of others ~ Shahrukh Husain

I like storytelling movies and more than that I like historical movies; and I think someday I'll definitely make a movie about the past 50 years history. ~ Asghar Farhadi

Mashallah I claim them all
my country is made
in my people's image
if they come for you they
come for me too...
… I see you map
my sky the light your lantern long
ahead & I follow I follow ~ Fatimah Asghar

Pakistan, she observed, had a policy of "profiting from the disputes of others," and she cited Pakistan's desire to benefit from tension between the great powers and Pakistan's early focus on the Palestine dispute as examples of this tendency. "Pakistan was occupied with her own grave internal problem, but she still found time to talk fervently of sending 'a liberation army to Palestine to help the Arabs free the Holy Land from the Jews ~ Husain Haqqani

How many poems must you write to convince yourself you have a family? Everyone leaves and you end up the stranger. ~ Fatimah Asghar

Avoid trouble. This was the operating principle of Abdul Hakim Husain, an idea so fiercely held that it seemed imprinted on his physical form. ~ Katherine Boo

There are those who simply want to live their lives, and feel they cannot live the way they want to in Iran. Others are ideologically motivated: They will stay no matter what and try to change things. ~ Asghar Farhadi

I'm an Indian-origin painter. I will remain so to my last breath. ~ M. F. Husain

Poetry, especially traditional Iranian poetry, is very good at looking at things from a number of different angles simultaneously. ~ Asghar Farhadi

Wherever I find love I will accept it. ~ M. F. Husain

We've been dead for thousands and thousands of years. Dead or sleeping, depends on how you feel about it at any given moment. But that's okay. The trouble starts when you are born, then everything becomes taxing and temporary. When they pulled us into awareness, they killed us. Then we get saddled with a seven minute relay, at best. A soft limbo that's only palliative and comforting in theory. A momentary respite that's a cosmic joke of course and still resented by the divine. A petty haggling of which we weren't even a part of. When forced into an existence, we turned into the ward of all that breathes, subjected to the known universe, and though always partial to the unknown, which wasn't really found and never understood, is lost to us. ~ Asghar Abbas

The fact is I'm not making a film in order to draw pictures or make images about Iran. ~ Asghar Farhadi

It's a mistake and misconception to think that one has to state everything clearly and simply for the audience to be able to follow the character, and this is what is bringing American cinema down from its position in the classic golden period. There's this misapprehension that the audience is not smart. ~ Asghar Farhadi

she looked like something chiseled from a memory of a lost and long forgotten god. ~ Asghar Abbas

Ninety-nine percent of Indian people loved me and they still love me. ~ M. F. Husain

Sharif gave instructions to his staff regarding snacks he wanted served to all of us - Sharif often asked for specific food items during meetings, as if it helped him concentrate his mind. ~ Husain Haqqani

Everyone is Annawadi talks like this- oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich. It's vanity, nothing more. Your little boat goes west and you congratulate yourself, "What a navigator I am!" And then the wind blows you east. -ABDUL'S FATHER, KARAM HUSAIN ~ Katherine Boo