A Quote by Amin Maalouf

What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself
I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good โ€œIโ€ who is going to improve the bad โ€œme.โ€ โ€œI,โ€ who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward โ€œme,โ€ and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently โ€œIโ€ will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make โ€œmeโ€ behave so badly.
Many accents and languages is part of myself has definitely played an important role in who I am today as an actor. I feel that speaking five languages has given me the opportunity to work in many different countries across our globe and it makes me understand better the value of each project when it is written in its original language.
As far as Irish writers being great, I think the fact that there have been two languages in Ireland for a very long time; there has obviously been a shared energy between those two languages.
I consider myself blessed that I am multi-lingual and now-a-days we all speak at least two-three languages.
There's nothing wrong with me, and I'm not going to apologize for the amount of time that I spent in two countries and I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I speak two languages and I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I have two versions of my name.
I do consider myself Canadian, but I feel American, too. I've spent more than fifteen years in each of the two countries, so really I just think of myself as a dual citizen, which is what I am. Thankfully, I've never been forced to choose!
To create, I destroyed myself; I made myself external to such a degree within myself that within myself I do not exist except in an external fashion. I am the living setting in which several actors make entrances, putting on several different plays.
I was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and I would go to school in Texas. I lived on the border, so I was very fortunate to grow up between two worlds and both cultures and both languages and traditions.
Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
I am a stupendously fast reader and always have been. I can read in at least three languages fluently and two languages with a little bit more difficulty.
I am probably more critical of myself than anyone else, I am very tiny - 5'1 and a half inches - so there's nowhere for weight to hide.
In love, for example - the so-called love - we are 'related.' We appear to be related. We create the fallacy of a relationship, but in fact we are just deceiving ourselves. The two will remain two. Howsoever near, the two will remain two. Even in sexual communion they will be two. This two-ness, this duality will never last. So a relationship is only creating a fallacious oneness. It is not there. Oneness can never exist between two selves. Oneness can only exist between two no-selves.
I train harder than anyone else in the world. Last year I was supposed to take a month off and I took three days off because I was afraid somebody out there was training harder. That's the feeling I go through every day - Am I not doing what somebody else is doing? Is someone out there training harder than I am? I can't live with myself if someone is.
I let football drive me crazy. If we lost, I would shut myself away for two or three days, not sleeping, torturing myself about what I did.
For my true thoughts have spent more time in your company than in anyone else's, these last two or three months, and where my thoughts are, there am I, in truth".
I hope I can improve. I'm far from perfect. Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I fought myself. I think it would be a one-round KO. But if I was fighting myself, I know I could take my best punch. No, make that two rounds. I would knock myself out in two rounds.
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