All Pleasures Must Be Paid For, Do

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 Amplifies The Opinion Prevalent At A Certain Time, To The Point Where It Covers Any Other Opinion.

... We Die, Just As We Were Born, At The Edge Of A Road Not Of Our Choosing.

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 English Have Devastated…", "the Jews Have Confiscated…", "the Blacks Have Torched", "the Arabs Refuse…". We Blithely Express Sweeping Judgments On Whole Peoples, Calling Them "hardworking" And "ingenious", Or "lazy", "touchy", "sly", "proud", Or "obstinate". And Sometimes This Ends In Bloodshed." – Amin Maalouf "on Identity

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

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.