Ouchene Hamid Quotes

We are not America. We are Afghanistan. ~ Hamid Karzai

Islam is not dark but very bright indeed. Islam is not depressing but instead, quite uplifting and inspiring. Islam is not about censoring but instead it is about voluntary submission. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

Constantine cursed the faujis again, and then he cursed Tom Cruise for having made that bloody Top Gun movie. Since then, an entire generation of faujis had grown up thinking they could be like him just by buying those cheap rip-off sunglasses for 200 rupees from Zainab Market. ~ Omar Shahid Hamid

For we were not always burdened by debt, dependent on foreign aid and handouts; in the stories we tell of ourselves we were not the crazed and destitute radicals you see on your television channels but rather saints and poets and - yes - conquering kings. We built the Royal Mosque and the Shalimar Gardens in this city, and we built the Lahore Fort with its mighty walls and wide ramp for our battle-elephants. And we did these things when your country was still a collection of thirteen small colonies, gnawing away at the edge of a continent. ~ Mohsin Hamid

What did I think of Princeton? Well, the answer to that question requires a story. When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings - younger, I later learned, than many of the mosques of this city, but made through acid treatment and ingenious stone-masonry to look older ... ~ Mohsin Hamid

To flee forever is beyond the capacity of most: at some point even a hunted animal will stop, exhausted, and awaits its fate, if only for a while. ~ Mohsin Hamid

In Pakistan, my friends and family are frightened, as they should be when the ~ Mohsin Hamid

Ozi made me feel so known. He made love to my insides, filling desperate gaps and calming unbearably sensitive places. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Didn't you tell me smoking ruined your stamina as a boxer?
...
Ruined is a strong word, I'd say.
...
It helps fight boredom. It gives you more to do and less time to do it in. ~ Mohsin Hamid

[O]ver sufficiently long a term, as everyone knows, there is nothing that does not have as its consequence death. ~ Mohsin Hamid

He who acquires knowledge and acts up to it and teaches it to the people is noble to the angels of heaven and earth. He is like the sun which illumines itself and gives light to other things. Such a man is like a pot of musk which is full of fragrance and gives fragrance to others. He who teaches knowledge to others but does not himself act up to it is like a notebook which does not benefit itself but benefits others or like an instrument which gives edge to iron but itself has got no edge, or like a needle which remains naked but sews clothing for others, or like a lamp which gives light to other things but itself burns. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

The majority of the Afghan people support a strategic partnership with the United States. ~ Hamid Karzai

I would never call a neighbor an enemy. But I would request the neighbor to be a good neighbor, to see that the neighbor's interest is a stable prosperous neighbor, a neighbor that is doing well. ~ Hamid Karzai

Your teacher did not want to be a teacher. He wanted to be a meter reader at the electric utility. Meter readers do not have to put up with children, work comparatively little, and what is more important, have greater opportunity for corruption and are hence both better off and held in higher regard by society. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The mountain trembled like an earthquake. Dust flew into the sky. And the rock turned dark red, like the color of blood'.
'How would you know?' Asks Sindhi cap. 'You only have a black and white television'.
'But it's a very good one. You can almost see colours. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism. ~ Mohsin Hamid

In their phones were antennas, and these antennas sniffed out an invisible world, as if by magic, a world that was all around them, and also nowhere, transporting them to places distant and near, and to places that had never been and would never be. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The ongoing war in Afghanistan is being imposed on us, and Afghans are being sacrificed in it for someone else's interests. We are not blocking the interests of the United States or other major powers. But we are demanding that if you consider Afghanistan the place from which to advance your interests, then you should also pay attention to Afghanistan's interests. ~ Hamid Karzai

I'm not sure if guys are supposed to read Vanity Fair. I feel very metrosexual with it but am not sure it's in my comfort zone. ~ Mohsin Hamid

But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale screen. To transform these icons into characters and events, you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create. ~ Mohsin Hamid

No one can run away from being tested so don't even bother trying. ~ Norhafsah Hamid

Part of the lore of the Mirage poker room was the four-day $600-$1,200 game Ted played with Hamid Dastmalchi, the 1992 World Champion and a man similarly possessed of a cast-iron constitution. At the end of it, Dastmalchi was taken out of the Mirage in an ambulance. Forrest joked that it was all the bad beats he showed Hamid, but it may have had more to do with the estimated fifty packs of cigarettes Dastmalchi smoked during the game. ~ Michael Craig

We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees. Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes, that those who have gone are gone and those who will go, which is to say every one of us, will go. For there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create. ~ Mohsin Hamid

(12) TWELVTH SIGN: Another sign of the learned man of the next world is that he saves himself from innovations even though the people are unanimous on innovations and novelties. He is rather diligent in studying the conditions of the companions, their conduct and character and their deeds. They spent their lives in jihad, meditation, avoidance of major and minor sins, observation of their outer conduct and inner self. But the greater object of thought of the learned men of the present time is to teach, compose books, to make argumentation, to give Fatwa, to become mutawali of Waqf estates, enjoy the properties of orphans, frequent the rulers and enjoy their company. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

There's a reason prophets perform miracles; language lacks the power to describe faith. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Literature helps us transcend ourselves. ~ Mohsin Hamid

I think the most effective forms of critique are ones that establish a common ground for people to occupy, and then appeal to the best nature of people on that common ground. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The Prophet said in a sermon: Blessed is he whose concern for his own faults keeps him away of finding fault of others, who spends out of his lawful earnings, keeps company with theologians and the wise, and spurns the sinners and the wicked people. Blessed is he who humbles himself, makes his conduct refined, heart good and does not do harm to the people. Blessed is he who acts up to his knowledge, spends his surplus wealth, abstains from superfluous talks, follows sunnah and does not introduce innovations. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Readers don't work for writers. They work for themselves. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The fury of those nativists advocating wholesale slaughter was what struck Nadia most, and it struck her because it seemed so familiar, so much like the fury of the militants in her own city. She wondered whether she and Saeed had done anything by moving, whether the faces and buildings had changed but the basic reality of their predicament had not. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Keep the good memories and throw out the bad ones ~ Norhafsah Hamid

She slips her arm around my shoulders and cradles my head against her breast.
We breathe together. Slowly.
Time passes, flowing, a long, less and less painful sigh. And I shut my eyes.
Pain becomes only physical again.
Fear recedes.
Anger flickers for a moment longer, gas in the pipes after the stove has been turned off.
She says, "I'll take care of you."
And I feel gratitude and happiness rise up inside me: old friends, long-forgotten and yet much missed. ~ Mohsin Hamid

A third layer of nativeness was composed of those whom others thought directly descended, even the tiniest fraction of their genes, from the human beings who had been brought from Africa centuries ago as slaves. While this layer of nativeness was not vast in proportion of the rest, it had vast importance, for society had been shaped in reaction to it. An unspeakable violence had occurred in relation to it, and yet it endured, fertile, a stratum of soil that perhaps made possible all future transplanted soils. ~ Mohsin Hamid

But surely it is the gist that matters; I am, after all, telling you a history, and in history, as I suspect you - an American - will agree, it is the thrust of one's narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one's details. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The end of the world can be cozy at times. ~ Mohsin Hamid

There are two social classes in Pakistan," Professor Superb said to his unsuspecting audience, gripping the podium with both hands as he spoke. "The first group, large and sweaty, contains those referred to as the masses. The second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite. The distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource:air-conditioning. You see, the elite have managed to re-create for themselves the living standards of say, Sweden without leaving the dusty plains of the subcontinent. They're a mixed lot - Punjabi and Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis, smugglers , mullahs, soldiers, industrialists - united by their residence in an artificially cooled world. They wake up in air-conditioned houses, drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices, grab lunch in air-conditioned restaurants (rights of admission reserved), and at the end of the day go home to an air-conditioned lounges to relax in front of their wide-screen TVs. And if they should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of the summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air-conditioned heaven, or at the very least, a long, cool drink during a fiery day in hell. ~ Mohsin Hamid

He was a man who discovered love through his penis. ~ Mohsin Hamid

But his dislike was so obvious, so intimate, that it got under my skin. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Basically, asking me what kind of music I like is like asking what kind of food I like: 'Anything that tastes good,' is the answer. I'm the kind of guy who spends three times as much on his speakers as he does on his television. ~ Mohsin Hamid

In times of violence, there is always that first acquaintance or intimate of ours, who, when they are touched, makes what had seemed like a bad dream suddenly, evisceratingly real. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Violent cities, people who live in violent cities, find a way - as New Yorkers did 30 or 40 years ago - they find a way to just carry on. But you're stressed out. You're worried, you know. ~ Mohsin Hamid

The statements of certain western officials show that contrary to their absurd claims, westerners are disqualified, and impetuous, lacking any cultural background. ~ Hamid-Reza Assefi

'Which is stronger, politics or love?' is like asking, 'Which is stronger, exhaling or inhaling?' They are two sides of the same thing. ~ Mohsin Hamid

This flag .. is raised not without costs, .. without the costs of having struggled for many years, without the costs of having lost so many lives in order to have a free and sovereign and good Afghanistan. ~ Hamid Karzai

A learned man said: The learned men are the lights of the ages. Each is a light in his own time giving light to the people of his time. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

A fourth group of people climbs from ignorance and pretends to possess the rational faculty. They suppose that the highest felicity is the expansion of honor and fame, the spread of reputation, a multiplicity of followers, and the influence of the command that is obeyed. Hence, you see that their only concern is eye service and cultivation of the things upon which observers cast their glance. One of them may go hungry in his house and suffer harm so that he can spend his wealth on clothes with which to adorn himself so that no one will look at him with the eye of contempt when he goes out. The types of these people are beyond count. All of them are veiled from Allah by the sheer darkness that is their own dark souls. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali