A Quote by Hassan Blasim
I've been working on the margins and I was aware of this choice from the start. I buy most of what's written and produced in the Arab world and I don't much like it.
Related Quotes
In many parts of the world, including the Arab world, the Latin American world, and even parts of the Western world, there is a tradition of writers being quite engaged. Particularly in the Arab world you have had very, very strong traditions of literature and poetry and most of the writers have been deeply committed to the cause of the Arab nation.
Jordan is many different things and there's many different parts of it. We don't ever really get to see a modern Arab city, a part of the Arab world where people are seemingly living their lives like everywhere else and also just a part of the Arab world that's surprisingly Americanized, with fast-food joints everywhere and shopping malls. Over the 30 years I've been traveling there, I really saw it grow and become modernized and much more Americanized in a way that surprised me as an Arab-American.
I had a choice between working on Wall Street or doing consulting or working at a start-up, and I got a job at a start-up. I was one of the first employees there, and I did everything for them, and it was so much fun.
I don't have any choice any more. I am in a choiceless awareness. I don't have to be aware. I am simply aware. Now it is just like my heartbeat or like my breathing. Even if I try not to be aware, it is not possible; the very effort will make me more aware. Awareness is not a quality, a characteristic; it is your whole being. When you become aware, there is no choice left to be otherwise.
The Arab world is also the world that produced some of the greatest improvements in mathematics and in science. Even today, when a Princeton mathematician does an algorithm, he may not remember that "algorithm" derived from the name al-Khwarizmi, who is a ninth-century Arab mathematician.
I think the Arab world has no personality cult situation going on that they have in much of the Western world, South America included. They are a culture of words and religion, and you won't see manycsa charismatic people on Al Jazeera, except for the ones who are now learned presenters. You see Arab leaders getting on TV - which was very hard for me working out how to do the part, since Arab leaders are looking somnambulant, staring into their microphone, almost as if someone's got a hand up their back.
I love working that way, and that's sort of the way that Mark, Jay, and I have been working for years, where we start with scripts that are really solid and well-written. But once we get into the scene and we start doing the work, we definitely loosen things up.
It is the growing periphery of the Arab world - the masses at its margins, not its feeble and decaying center - that is shaping the future of the region.
Money. . . those who don't have enough of it are only aware of what it can buy them. When you finally have enough of it you become aware- acutely aware-of all the things it can't buy ... the really important things, like youth, health, love, peace of mind.
I want a future where my children feel safe and appreciated and proud to be who they are. My heart is one with all the Arab Spring heroes, no matter how small they think their role is. I know they believe, like me, that we are working for a world whereby an Arab can live with the other in a respectful and dignified way.
It's been written about as "the overview effect." All I can give you is my perspective, but most all of the people who have been in space start to see the world without boundaries. You start to think about how we can keep doing these things we're doing that are destructive of the environment and destructive of the planet. It causes you to start to think things in a quite different way than we had before.
I think it's time we start chipping away at the stereotypes in Hollywood about the Middle East, and the Arab World, because it's one of the most beautiful regions in the world.
An Arab activist can take pride in the Arab heritage of mathematics and science or he can take pride in his religion, and there's pride to be taken in both. But one of them could be exploited much more easily and has been in the context of world conflict. And the other is very difficult to do on the grounds that science and literature and mathematics have been among the uniting factors in the history of the world.
If you've been working since you were a teenager and working at a reasonably decent level, then you don't expect that you're going to be firmly in your 40s and start moving up in the world, if you like.
Usually, the first thing I do when I wake up is I start working, so I often won't start the day by reading anything because I like to minimize my 'commute' as much as possible. I wake up, open my laptop and start working in bed.
Providing access to a public option for health insurance would allow all Americans the choice to buy a government insurance plan, much like I buy for my family as a military retiree.
Related Authors
Claude Lelouch Quotes
French
Film director
Costa-Gavras Quotes
French
Film director
Franny Armstrong Quotes
British
Film director
Gabe Polsky Quotes
American
Film director
James Ponsoldt Quotes
American
Film director
Jaume Collet-Serra Quotes
American
Film director
Jean-Pierre Jeunet Quotes
French
Film director
Joseph McGinty Nichol Quotes
American
Film director
Julian Huxley Quotes
English
Film director
Kimberly Peirce Quotes
American
Film director
Larry Clark Quotes
American
Film director
Laura Poitras Quotes
American
Film director
Len Wiseman Quotes
American
Film director
Oren Moverman Quotes
American
Film director
Ti West Quotes
American
Film director
