Yasmina Khadra > Quotes

“Life is a train that stops at no stations; you either jump abroad or stand on the platform and watch as it passes.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“Celui qui passe à coté de la plus belle histoire de sa vie n'aura que l'âge de ses regrets et tous les soupirs du monde ne sauraient bercer son âme.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“Music is the true breath of life. We eat so we won't starve to death. We sing so we can hear ourselves live.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul

“إن من قال لك إن الرجل الذي لايبكي، بجهل ماهي الرجولة، فلاتخجل من البكاء يابني، لأن الدموع أرقى ماتملك”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“Nous, les Arabes, ne sommes pas paresseux. Nous prenons seulement le temps de vivre. Ce qui n'est pas le cas des Occidentaux. Pour eux, le temps, c'est de l'argent.
Pour nous, le temps ça n'a pas de prix. Un verre de thé suffit à notre bonheur, alors qu'aucun bonheur ne leur suffit. Toute la différence est là.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“For a man to think he can fulfil his destiny without a woman is a misunderstanding, a miscalculation; it is reckless and folly. Certainly a woman is not everthing, but everything depends on her.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“We've already been killed, all of us. It happened so long ago, we've forgotten it.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul

“Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“If you want your life to be a small part of eternity, to be lucid even in the heart of madness, love... Love with all your strength, love as though it is all you know how to do, love enough to make the gods themselves jealous... for it is in love that all ugliness reveals its beauty.”
― Yasmina Khadra, What the Day Owes the Night

“We're fine together, just like this: Our silence protects us from ourselves”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“...tout compte fait, je crois que mon tort était de ne pas avoir eu le courage de mes convictions. Je pouvais me trouver toutes les excuses du monde, aucune d'elles ne me donnerait raison. En réalité maintenant que j'avais perdu la face , je me cherchais un masque. Pareil à un défiguré, je me cachais derrière mes pansements qui me servaient aussi de moucharabiehs. Je regardais en cachette la vérité des autres, en abusais pour distancer la mienne”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“On peut tout te prendre; tes biens, tes plus belles années, l'ensemble de tes joies, et l'ensemble de tes mérites, jusqu'à ta dernière chemise. Il te restera toujours tes rêves pour réinventer le monde que l'on t'a confisqué...”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“السرّ الحقيقي لا يتقاسمه المرء مع أحد”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“Les hommes ont inventé la guerre, la femme a inventé la résistance.”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“Quand on ne trouve pas la solution à son malheur, on lui cherche un coupable.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“What to keep of all these reels of film, what to throw away? If we could only take 1 memory on our journey, what would we choose? At the expense of what or whom? And most importantly, how to choose among all these shadows, all these spectres, all these titans? Who are we, when all is said and done? Are we the people we once were or the people we wish we had been? Are we the pain we caused others or the pain we suffered at the hands of others? The encounters we missed or those fortuitous meetings that changed the course of our destiny? Our time behind the scenes that saved us form our vanity or the moment in the limelight that warmed us? We are all of these things, we are the whole life that we have lived, its highs and lows, its fortunes and its hardships, we are the sum of the ghosts that haunt us... we are a host of characters in one, so convincing in every role we played that it is impossible for us to tell who we really were, who we have become, who we will be.”
― Yasmina Khadra, What the Day Owes the Night

“La vie est un apprentissage permanent ; plus on croit savoir, moins on sait, tant les choses changent et avec elles les mentalités.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“من يحلم كثيراً ينسى أن يعيش”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“Si tu veux pleurer, pleure; si tu veux espérer, prie, mais, de grâce, ne cherche pas de coupable là où tu ne trouves pas de sens à ta douleur.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

“Basically, being alive means keeping yourself ready for the sky to fall in on you at any time. If you start from the assumption that existence is only an ordeal, a test we have to pass, then you’re equipped to deal with its sorrows and its surprises. If you persist in expecting it to give you something it can’t give, that just proves that you haven’t understood anything. Take things as they come; don’t turn them into a drama. You’re not piloting the ship, you’re following the course of your destiny.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul

“You're all the world to me. Whenever i can't see you... I die a little.”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“If you haven’t lost your mind yet, that’s because you haven’t seen very much.”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Sirens of Baghdad

“الذين شاؤوا الحرب كانوا أول الهاربين، أنا لم أشأ الحرب لهذا خضتها بلا خداع”
― Yasmina Khadra, L'imposture des mots

“There's nothing, absolutely nothing, more important than your life. And your life isn't more important than other people's lives.”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“You're living through the only moments that make life worthwhile... In love, even beasts become divine.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul

“Si la rose savait que sa grâce et sa beauté la conduisent droit dans un vase, elle serait la première à trancher la gorge avec sa propre épine.”
― Yasmina Khadra, L'imposture des mots

“When you can't find a remedy for your pain, you look for someone to blame.”
― Yasmina Khadra

“Le coucher de soleil, le printemps, le bleu de la mer, les étoiles de la nuit, toutes ces choses que nous disons captivantes n’ont de magie que lorsqu’elles gravitent autour d’une femme, mon garçon… Car la Beauté, la vraie, l’ unique, la beauté phare, la beauté absolue, c ’est la femme. Le reste, tout le reste n ’est qu ’accessoires de charme.”
― Yasmina Khadra

“Anyone who tells you that a greater symphony exists than the breath in your body is lying.”
― Yasmina Khadra, The Attack

“Omul care lasă să-i scape dragostea vieții sale va ajunge singur cu regretele sale și toate suspinele lumii nu-i pot aduce alinare sufletului.”
― Yasmina Khadra