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Quote by Lailah Gifty Akita

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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“My problem wasn’t my parents, it wasn’t my friends, it wasn’t my education, it wasn’t even the weird environment I grew up in. I chose to do drugs, I weighed the reasons for and against them, and I chose them because I thought they would provide meaning and pleasure to my life. I chose them because I believed life was a cosmic mishap and all we could do was make ourselves feel good before we die and slip away into nothingness. I chose them because they helped numb the pain of my hopeless worldview. I chose them because I didn’t know there was an alternative that could meet these needs in a better, more permanent, more fulfilling way.”

HopelessDrugsChoseProvide
Book:Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
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“And yet even after letting me see where my own path would lead me, God bailed me out of the consequences that I had brought on myself. It seemed even if I chose things that led to bondage and captivity, He would be there to stand on my behalf and offer me a path forward. He removed the incriminating evidence against me and set me free. But what good was it when I couldn’t change, when I just kept demanding my own way and getting myself trapped again and again?”

CaptivityChoseRemovedBe ThereSet Me Free
Book:Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
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“I was to grow used to hearing, around New York, the annoying way in which people would say: 'Edward Said, such a suave and articulate and witty man,' with the unspoken suffix 'for a Palestinian.' It irritated him, too, naturally enough, but in my private opinion it strengthened him in his determination to be an ambassador or spokesman for those who lived in camps or under occupation (or both). He almost overdid the ambassadorial aspect if you ask me, being always just too faultlessly dressed and spiffily turned out. Fools often contrasted this attention to his tenue with his membership of the Palestine National Council, the then-parliament-in-exile of the people without a land. In fact, his taking part in this rather shambolic assembly was a kind of noblesse oblige: an assurance to his landsmen (and also to himself) that he had not allowed and never would allow himself to forget their plight. The downside of this noblesse was only to strike me much later on.”

New YorkBigotryAmbassadorsDressPalestiniansSnobbishnessEdward SaidPalestinian National Council
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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