I told her I was not sure if I could bear living with memories, she said, Look up at the stars, look, they are not there, what you see is the memory of what once was, once upon a time.

— Rabih Alameddine

I want a God that makes me twirl.' I jumped off the couch. Furthermore, I untucked and unbuttoned my shirt so it would flow like a robe. 'Like this. I can do this for God.' I held my hands out. Furthermore, I twirled and twirled and twirled. 'Look,' I said. 'Look.

— Rabih Alameddine

I was a lonely boy. I spent all my time reading books and watching the world. [some] tried to draw me out at first, but their hearts weren't in it. And after all, they had enough troubles of their own.

— Rabih Alameddine

I was always alone, Doc, solitary whether I wished to be or not, ever since I could remember I wished to be lost in another, thought that somehow I could disappear into that heart of yours, take walks within your veins, wander through the bones of you. You had friends, Satan said, you loved and were loved, you must not forget that, at least not that. But did I allow anyone in, I asked Satan, and he said, Did you, does anyone?

— Rabih Alameddine

I was a tourist in a bizarre land. I was home.

— Rabih Alameddine

... I wondered at times whether I would wake up and this would be just a bad dream, a nightmare that I could wish away, I had the same fantasy when you were sick, Doc, that I would one day wake up, and you all would be healthy and alive.

— Rabih Alameddine

I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.

— Rabih Alameddine

I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Do we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?

— Rabih Alameddine

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.

— Rabih Alameddine

Literature is my sandbox. In it, I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world, so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books." (p. 5)

— Rabih Alameddine