Middle East Historical Fiction Quotes

Shepherds use religion to fight wars, sheep fight over religion. ~ Piet Hein Wokke

If you will it, it's not a dream. ~ Theodor Herzl

Memories are strange things. Withough being something I can hold in my hand, they wield a beguiling power over me. Like a mirage in the noontime heat of summer, they dance before my inner eyes and beckon me to find water where there is not water. ~ Joy Sikorski

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background. ~ Recep Tayyip Erdogan

…I relied on an unpublished report by Jose Fernandez-Partagas, a late-twentieth-century meteorologist who recreated for the National Hurricane Center the tracks of many historical hurricanes, among them the Galveston Hurricane. He was a meticulous researcher given to long hours in the library of the University of Miami, where he died on August 25, 1997, in his favorite couch. He had no money, no family, no friends--only hurricanes. The hurricane center claimed his body, had him cremated, and on August 31, 1998, launched his ashes through the drop-port of a P-3 Orion hurricane hunter into the heart of Hurricane Danielle. His remains entered the atmosphere at 28 N., 74.2 W., about three hundred miles due east of Daytona Beach. ~ Erik Larson

If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. But all nature cries aloud that He does exist.
(Voltaire) ~ Elizabeth Kales

The Western planners are definitely trying to fragment the entire Middle East. They already have done, on several historical occasions. ~ Andre Vltchek

Writing fiction is a respectable way of fibbing for a living - and enjoying it!
-Anne George ~ Anne George

Wars between states and people seem to have existed under all historical systems for as long as we have some recorded evidence. War is quite clearly not a phenomenon particular to the modern world-system. On the other hand, once again the technological achievements of capitalist civilization serve as much ill as good. One bomb in Hiroshima killed more people than whole wars in pre-modern times. Alexander the Great in his whole sweep of the Middle East could not compare in destructiveness to the impact of the Gulf War on Iraq and Kuwait. ~ Immanuel Wallerstein

With the backdrop of its geostrategic location and historical ties with the Middle East, Turkey has an essential role to play for the stability, peace and social development of the region. ~ Victor Ponta

During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue. ~ Philip Khuri Hitti

In the wake of World War I, however, the British and French took out their imperial pens and carved up what remained of the Ottoman dynastic empire, and created an assortment of nation-states in the Middle East modeled along their own. The borders of these new states consisted of neat polygons - with right angles that were always in sharp contrast to the chaotic reality on the ground. In the Middle East, modern Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan and the various Persian Gulf oil states all traced their shapes and origins back to this process; even most of their names were imposed by outsiders. In other words, many of the states in the Middle East today - Egypt being the most notable exception - were not willed into existence by their own people or developed organically out of a common historical memory or ~ Thomas L. Friedman

In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice ... Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin. ~ Noam Chomsky

Have you forgiven yourself?" The quiet question slipped between his ribs to stagger his breath. "Abby squeezed his hand. "That's the hardest part, I've found." A thickness crept up Zach's throat. "How do you manage it?" "Little by little. I take comfort in the scriptures that talk about how God removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, how He will remember our sins no more, how He urges us to cast our cares on Him. ~ Karen Witemeyer

From Marx, I received the concept of what human society is; otherwise, someone who hasn't read about it, or to whom it hasn't been explained, it's as though they were set down in the middle of a forest, at night, without knowing which way north is, or south, east or west. Marx told us what a society is and the history of its evolution. Without Marx, you can't formulate any argument that leads to a reasonable interpretation of historical events - what the tendencies are, the probable evolution of a humanity that has not yet completed its social evolution. ~ Fidel Castro

In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it. ~ Noam Chomsky

Fenella Doorn watched the unfamiliar wreck of a ship ghosting into her bay. Crippled by cannon fire, she thought. What else could do such damage? The foremast was blown away, as well as half the mainmast where a jury rig clung to the jagged stump, and shot holes tattered the sails on the mizzen. And yet, to Fenella's experienced eye the vessel had an air of defiance. Demi-cannons hulked in the shadowed gun ports. This ship was a fighter, battered but not beaten. With fight still in her, was she friend or foe? ~ Barbara Kyle

There are some corrupt Christians who do their business with female donkeys. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Six wives the King's had now.' Barak's words dragged me from my reverie. 'We can't even get one between us. ~ C.J. Sansom

Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we're their most reliable ally, too. ~ Ben Stein

I am German, yes, but I am not a Nazi. There is a difference, and one day I hope you understand that. ~ Caroline Leech

With Albright at the helm of the State Department, Osama bin Laden ran wild throughout the Middle East, the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes under her nose, and we staged a pre-emptive attack solely for purposes of regime change based on false information presented to the American people by Albright about a world leader who was not an imminent threat to the United States. Slobodan Milosevic wasn't even a latent, long-term, hypothetical threat. ~ Ann Coulter

We know there can be no justice in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. But there can be no security in the Middle East without a Palestinian state. ~ David Miliband

I wish you could simply extirpate violence and war from the world, abolish all the armed forces, and destroy all the bombs. But this is probably not very realistic. Ultimately, everyone has to start with themselves. Many want to be active somewhere else, at best in a country where they don't currently live. But what's the point, if there's no peace in your own life? So be at peace with yourself. And how? Through peaceful dealings with others. Start by ensuring peace at home before you go out into the world. Or work for peace in both spheres. You can't be working for a peace camp in the Middle East during the day and then in the evening have a quarrel with your family over the phone. ~ Jon Gnarr

European institutions and the worldview of conquest and colonialism had formed several centuries before that. From the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, Europeans conducted the Crusades to conquer North Africa and the Middle East, leading to unprecedented wealth in the hands of a few. ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

I had a long writing history behind me before I got into anything in film. It comprehended science fiction, it comprehended historical, it comprehended, you know, just about everything that you can think of. ~ William Monahan

The size of the Earth has been known for more than two thousand years, although the number was lost or disputed when the Earth went from being round to being flat again in the Middle Ages (under the prodding of Christian heaven-watchers, the Greek philosophers' [Eratosthenes 276-194 BC] work was erased in Europe and preserved only by Muslim scientists in the Middle East and North Africa). ~ Marq De Villiers

I aim to make the fiction flexible so that it bends itself around the facts as we have them. Otherwise I don't see the point. Nobody seems to understand that. Nobody seems to share my approach to historical fiction. I suppose if I have a maxim, it is that there isn't any necessary conflict between good history and good drama. ~ Hilary Mantel

Two hundred and fifty years of nameless, faceless, forgotten individuals. Yes, they were America's founding fathers and mothers as much as the bewigged white men who laid the whips upon their backs. Why didn't Lina know their names? Why hadn't she studied their histories? Where was the monument? Where was the museum? What had they wished for and worked for and loved? ~ Tara Conklin

In short, we have to face two fundamental facts about geopolitics today: Fact #1: The necessary is impossible. Fact #2: The impossible is necessary. That is, while we cannot repair the wide World of Disorder on our own, we also cannot just ignore it. It metastasizes in an interdependent world. If we don't visit the World of Disorder in the age of accelerations, it will visit us. This is especially true when you know that the age of accelerations is going to continue to hammer frail states and produce migration flows, particularly from Africa and the Middle East toward Europe, as well as more super-empowered breakers. So ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Turkey in general became too involved with what is happening in Egypt and in Syria. Some politicians with neo-Ottoman dreams developed this idea of being a major player in the Middle East, which hasn't gone as expected. ~ Elif Safak

Even in the the dark times, He is there. And in the good times we need to be good stewards of the blessing.~ pg 219 ~ Nancy Moser

In the knowing, there was peace. ~ Jennifer A. Nielsen

She ran the harder and zagged more erratically, and in the wreckage left from the hurricane the girl misjudged her path and ran straight into the old well.
She didn't even scream. ~ Samuel Snoek-Brown

I wanted to be a novelist from a very early age - 11 or 12 - but I don't think I ever thought I would write historical fiction. I never thought I might write academic history because I simply wasn't good enough! ~ Pat Barker

Mongkol, poor Mongkol, shedding tears.

Thinking of his smiling, comical face, and his dreams of sending his son to university, I could only lower my head in silence.

And the night continued, cold and dark, the wind frozen beyond the mountains. ~ You Jin

We think we're near energy independence - nothing could be further from the truth. We're in much better shape now, but the price of a barrel of oil is going to be controlled by the Middle East for the next 10, 20, 30 years for sure. ~ Michael Mullen

Anything by Kipling ~ Rudyard Kipling

There's something very wrong with this world, and it isn't just the wars going on in Asia or the Middle East. ~ Paulo Coelho

I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we? ~ Philippa Gregory

Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history's illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities. ~ Lauren Willig