“What is the purpose of a city if not to grant the greatest of gifts, anonymity?”

“In Lebanon, there are completely different opinions and values in one country in terms of religion, modernity, tradition, East and West - which allows for a kind of intellectual development not available anywhere else.”

“I know many sports fans that don't enjoy soccer. The argument is that there's no action, not enough of it.”

“I never wanted to be prominent enough to have enemies.”

“Had I known that coffee could taste so good, I would have gotten drunk on it every day.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don't.”

“I can relate to Marguerite Duras even though I'm not French, nor have I been consumed by love for an East Asian man. I can life inside Alice Munro's skin. But I can't relate to my own mother. My body is full of sentences and moments, my heart resplendent with lovely turns of phrases, but neither is able to be touched by another.”

“She felt the intimate loss of who she was meant to become.”

“No matter how good a story is, there is more at stake in the telling.”

“Like all cities, Beirut has many layers, and I had been familiar with one or two. What I was introduced to that day with Ali and Kamal was the Beirut of its people. You take different groups, put them on top of each other, simmer for a thousand years, keep adding more and more strange tribes, simmer for another few thousand years, salt and pepper with religion, and what you get is a delightful mess of a stew that still tastes delectable and exotic, no matter how many times you partake of it.”

“...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.”