A Quote by John Updike
Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot.
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Prayer doesn’t work. Perhaps it makes the believer feel better (in the same way that meditation or deep thought would), but prayer doesn’t actually affect the external world. Not only is it ineffective, but it is also a very narcissistic practice… why would a 'God' change its 'Divine Plan' to accommodate any person’s wishes?
I have four daughters, the eldest is 19, the youngest is 12, and I watched all of them journey into motherhood. Motherhood is very deep. It starts when you're very, very young. Now, my 12 year old comes in, wants to put me to bed. And she'll, you know, put her hand on my forehead and say the prayer with me. As for years I've done for her! It's almost like a very beautiful, natural transition.
There is nothing more beautiful in the world, enough to lose one's head. A sunset with a long nose, a starry sky that lies, a river searching for its father, a beautiful blue forest. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it's very mean, generous, magical, universal, a picture of freedom, of unrestrained desire to live, of pain and joy - a joy so powerful and sweet that it restores the souls in every spot on earth. The story of Pinocchio - nothing more beautiful in the world.
When you improvise on the spot, people are very reluctant to have soft moments or quiet moments or sad moments because they're trying to fill up the spaces. So they always go towards, "How come you're late?! You're supposed to have my shirt ready! You call this a dry cleaner?!" That's what happens. That's why improvising on the spot gets very dicey.
I took the name Green Destiny from - well there is such a sword called Green Destiny. It is green because you keep twisting it, it's an ancient skill, you keep twisting it and knocking it and twisting it until it is very elastic and light.
I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness; and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.
I went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.
What to say? That the end of love is a haunting. A haunting of dreams. A haunting of silence. Haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost. Life ebbs. The pulse is too faint. Nothing stirs you. Some people approve of this and call it healing. It is not healing. A dead body feels no pain.
It sometimes happens to me while writing, that I seek a word; mischievous as it is it appears in English, it appears in Arabic, but refuses to come in Hebrew. To some extent I made up my Hebrew. Unquestionably, the influence of Arabic is dominant, my syntax is almost Arabic.
Recently I have done some circles that are almost that large and I've come all the way around after walking for an hour and I have hit the other side exactly. I mean exactly the right spot which is very strange. Believe me it's very, very strange.
At the conscious approach of death, faith in the Biblical Religion, with its God and Christ and written Revelation, never weakens, but almost or quite always strengthens, and very often advances to a splendid assurance; while unbelief under the same circumstances never strengthens, but almost or quite always weakens and falters, and very often fails utterly.
I'm very proud that I can be myself. I'm not trying to be Arabic, I'm just being me, and I happen to be Arabic. I think that might be refreshing to some people, and it's a bit more realistic than these pantomime villains we've seen before.
I grew up in a very small town in Scotland, a little place called Crieff which is beautiful and it's at the foothills to the highlands. It's a very beautiful part of the world. It's a small, I suppose quite conservative place.
I am quite convinced now... that the actual training of drawing cartoons - which is, of course, my style - led to my producing Spot. Cartoons must be very simple and have as few words as possible, and so, too, must the 'Spot' books.
I am a big believer in life in this fact: Scars are a very beautiful thing.
Woman at Point Zero I wrote during the '70s in Arabic. It came in English in '82. So, almost ten years' difference between the Arabic and the English.
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