Quotessence
Home / Authors / Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllWarPalestineGazaGaza WarPoliticsGenocideLovePowerRepublicansActivismAmericaDeathHatePalestiniansAngerEvilFearInjusticePrivilegeSuffering

Famous Omar El Akkad Quotes

“Father said he wasn’t worried. He said Americans are like this, brittle with privilege. Sometimes anger robs them of their senses and they make bad decisions, but in a way this was really just another testament to American greatness—how adept the United States was at surviving its endless self-inflicted wounds. We live in a good country, he said, and it will be good again.”

GreatnessGoodnessAngerPrivilegeAmericansBad DecisionsAmerican Greatness
Book:A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers
Create image

“My fear buys nothing. I expect it to buy nothing. In this case, I want it to buy nothing--who cares how I feel about flags? And yet, I know other people's fear--as irrational than mine, more irrational than mine--buys everything. It moves armies, obliterates thousands. As with rage, there is an invisible force to fear, a gravity. I can no more push my fear upward into another echelon of privilege than those above me can help but let theirs fall, with terrible force, onto the lives of those below.”

FearPowerPrivilegeDamageIrrationalityPower DynamicsCollateral Damage
Book:One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Create image

“Language is never sufficient. There is not enough of it to make a true mirror of living. In this way, the soothing or afflictive effect of the stories we tell is not in whether we select the right words but in our proximity to what the right words might be. This is not some abstraction, but a very real expression of power–the privilege of describing a thing vaguely, incompletely, dishonestly, is inseparable from the privilege of looking away.”

WarLanguagePowerWordsPrivilegePalestineGazaSufficiencyGaza WarLooking Away
Book:One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Create image

“What is the ethical legitimacy of any system in which one has to hope the most privileged sliver of global society decides, in large enough numbers, that a sufficient number of children have been murdered to warrant choosing a different brand of couscous? That enough migrants have been caged or drowned to make a particular vacation spot unappealing? That the well-being of Congolese children outranks the desire for ever more powerful smartphones?”

WarSocietyEthicsPrivilegeEveryday LifeDisruptionLegitimacyMigrants
Book:One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Create image