Let Your Tears Roll Tonight,

A Life Spent Writing Has Taught Me To Be Wary Of Words. Those That Seem Clearest Are Often The Most Treacherous.

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.

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 Us Give Thanks To Him For Having Given Us Weariness And Pain, So That Rest And Joy Are To Have Meaning. Let Us Give Thanks To Him, Whose Wisdom Is Infinite.

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

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.