Quotes by Amin Maalouf

About Amin Maalouf:

Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author. Has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel Le rocher de Tanios (translated into English as The Rock of Tanios). He has also been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in its 2010 edition. He was elected at the Académie française on 23 June 2011, on seat 29. Maalouf is the first Lebanese inducted as an academy immortal. He filled the vacant member seat of the late Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist and ethnologist.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only ampl...

Amin Maalouf

... je sais parfaitement que la peur pourrait faire basculer n'importe quelle personne dans le crime.

Amin Maalouf

Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices

Amin Maalouf

Can we reconcile indefinitely these two imperatives: the desire to preserve every individual's special identity and the need for Europeans to be able to communicate with one another all the time and as freely as possible? We cannot leave it to time t...

Amin Maalouf

En chacun de nous existe un Mr Hyde; le tout est d’empêcher que les conditions d'émergence du monstre ne soient rassemblées.

Amin Maalouf

let us thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning. Let ...

Amin Maalouf

Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.

Amin Maalouf

... we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.

Amin Maalouf

Our ancestors derived less from life than we do, but they also expected much less and were less intent on controlling the future. We are of the arrogant generations who believe a lasting happiness was promised to us at birth. Promised? By whom?

Amin Maalouf

The past is bound to be fragmentary, bound to be reconstructed, bound to be reinvented. It serves only to collect the truths of today. If our present is the child of the past, our past is the child of the present. And the future will be the harvester...

Amin Maalouf

Nothing is born of nothing, least of all knowledge, modernity, or enlightened thought; progress is made in tiny surges, in successive laps, like an endless relay race. But there are links without which nothing would be passed on, and for that reason,...

Amin Maalouf

By living exclusively for the present, we let ourselves be hemmed in by an ocean of death. Conversely, by reviving the past, we enlarge our living space.

Amin Maalouf

Doctrines are meant to serve man, not the other way around.

Amin Maalouf

You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.

Amin Maalouf

I have the profoundest respect for people who behave in a generous way because of religion. But I come from a country where the misuse of religion has had catastrophic consequences. One must judge people not by what faith they proclaim but by what th...

Amin Maalouf

It's the relationship I have with the world: always trying to escape from reality. I'm a daydreamer; I don't feel in harmony with my epoch or the societies I live in.

Amin Maalouf

During my youth, the idea of moving from Lebanon was unthinkable. Then I began to realise I might have to go, like my grandfather, uncles and others who left for America, Egypt, Australia, Cuba.

Amin Maalouf

The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

Amin Maalouf

I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road... all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them.

Amin Maalouf

Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts and opinions. "The Serbs have massacred…", "The Engli...

Amin Maalouf

Author Bio

  • NameAmin Maalouf
  • DescriptionLebanese writer
  • BornFebruary 25, 1949
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionJournalist; Writer; Librettist
  • WorksThe Rock Of Tanios
  • AwardsKnight Of The Legion Of Honour; Officer Of The National Order Of Merit; Commandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; Prix Goncourt; Premis Internacionals Terenci Moix; Prince Of Asturia Literary Prize