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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“It was important for me to show that Beirut and Lebanon were once the pearl of the Middle East. Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East and to have that feeling of a destroyed place that once was beautiful and glamorous and visually impressive was important. I think it's even sadder to get the feeling that this country, and indeed the whole Middle East, could have been a major force in the world if people would get together and forget about destruction, death and wars. But unfortunately, it's not happening yet.”

“It was important to me to change the narrative. It's important because it has an impact on everything you do. It doesn't matter who you are or what business you are running. You would always be seen as some African from the bush trying to run a bank. But we do these things successfully and we shouldn't be seen as second rate. That is the message that we are putting out there.”

“It was important to name this house, but not the way "Sweet Home" or other plantations were named. There would be no adjectives suggesting coziness or grandeur or the laying claim to an instant, aristocratic past. Only numbers here to identify the house while simultaneously separating it from a street or city—marking its difference from the houses of other blacks in the neighborhood; allowing it a hint of the superiority, the pride, former slaves would take in having an address of their own. Yet a house that has, literally, a personality—which we call "haunted" when that personality is blatant.”

“It was impossible to describe Allegra. He knew the human. The girl with the mole on her neck. The girl who would only say "bless you" twice—if you sneezed a third time, she was silent. The girl who picked at her lips when she was nervous. The girl who carried her own hot sauce around. The girl who stared off into space, sometimes for minutes on end. The girl who only made eye contact when she was listening to you, rarely when she was speaking to you. The girl who loathed smelly cheese. The girl who unconsciously mimicked people's accents. The girl whose entire face transformed when she laughed. His Allegra. The one millions would never know. The one he had earned through one summer of working with her, and one night in a glass house.”

“It was in 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.”

“It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “the American dream.” The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn’t fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else.”