Political Fiction Quotes

“You are there and to their ears, being a Syrian sounds like you’re unclean, shameful, indecent; it’s like you owe the world an apology for your very existence.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“The blind faith in some half-assed conspiracy theories lines up with the logic of having to believe in something with no questions asked. It gives us peace and comfort. As simple as I was, I found that resorting to this absolute nonsense was the root of all our problems. It was a road of willingly-learned helplessness, for no action could make a difference, thereby no action was needed.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“I am not an atheist preacher. I am not an absolutist or chauvinist whose ways are immune to evolution. My core philosophy is that I might be wrong.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“The old law of an eye for an eye didn’t make them blind to the fact that another man’s terrorist wasn’t their freedom fighter.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“In light of my distanced telescopic exposure to the mayhem, I refused to plagiarise others’ personal tragedies as my own. There is an authorship in misery that costs more than empathy. Often I’d found myself dumbstruck in failed attempts to simulate that particular unfamiliar dolour. After all, no one takes pleasure in being possessed by a wailing father collecting the decapitated head of his innocent six year old. Even on the hinge of a willing attempt at full empathy with those cursed with such catastrophes, one had to have a superhuman emotional powers. I could not, in any way, claim the ability to relate to those who have been forced to swallow the never-ending bitter and poisonous pills of our inherited misfortune. Yet that excruciating pain in my chest seemed to elicit a state of agony in me, even from far behind the telescope. It could have been my tribal gene amplified by the ripple effect of the falling, moving in me what was left of my humanity.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“In the mantra of shared hatred and placing the blame on Israel, our cowardice to face the barbarity of our heads of states was replaced with a divine purpose. Contemplating the manifestation of the eradication of hatred I often concluded, the entirety of the Middle East’s theocracies and dictatorships would be replaced by total anarchy. We would be left with nothing, as our brotherhood of hatred was the only bond known to us. Enculturated in the malarkey of that demagoguery, forces beyond our control and comprehension seem to deceive us into a less harmful and satisfactory logic as opposed to placing some blame on ourselves and thus, having to act to reverse that state of affairs.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“I have to stress that my duties towards victims of all sorts, be it helping, taking their side, or caring, ends the moment their status becomes a bargaining chip. The moment the victim becomes a righteous sufferer. For in my short time on this planet, history and on-going affairs are full of those competing in victimhood.”
― Asaad Almohammad, An Ishmael of Syria

“Future Politics
Effecting change in national politics was mostly a matter of making better use of online forums, encouraging voters to press forth with hard questions, providing statistics and solutions. Direct-to-voter referendums became an increasingly common way of effecting national policy. If Congress were deadlocked over a particular issue, the voters would be asked to make up their minds for them in the form of an online referendum.”
― Nancy Omeara, The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far]

“Written twenty years after she held office, this abridged biography is being released now, prior to taking place.

Maybe we can learn from history before it happens.”
― Nancy Omeara, The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far]

“It is easier to start a war than to end it.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it," he said with deep bitterness. "I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“شکنجه‌گرِ رژیم قبلی به چیزی اعتقاد نداشت. تا یک‌جایی وحشی‌گری می‌کرد، وقتی می‌دید سرِ اعتقادت ایستاده‌ای، احساس حقارت می‌کرد و برایت احترام قائل می‌شد. اما شکنجه‌گرِ این رژیم هرچه تو معتقدتر باشی، بیشتر به غیرت می‌آید تا نشان بدهد اعتقادش از تو کمتر نیست.”
― رضا قاسمی, چاه بابل

“...Prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is... and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams... Prophecy will bite your prick off everytime,”
― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

“Bad as political fiction can be, there is always a politician prepared to make it look artistic by comparison.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“There are some corrupt Christians who do their business with female donkeys.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“You think it's impossible to be a passive fighter? Well, sometimes fighting just means existing. Existing, not going away, and quietly biding your time.”
― Sophie Hardach, The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages

“Canada will bring us power for the future, Scandinavia the character, the steadiness…It’s the grand concept for survival…a union of know-how, that’s us, with power and character.”
― Fletcher Knebel, Night of Camp David

“Such work as is overtly political has usually been the result of neither experience nor insight, those essentials to any true creation, but rather of the frigid projection on to unsuitable material of opinions learnt in the abstract, ideologies accepted on trust.”
― Robert Conquest, Tyrants and Typewriters: The Struggle for Truth

“Immigration is an opaque glass box whose front door opens outwards.”
― Eva Asprakis, Thirty-Eight Days of Rain

“Capital dictates the fate of humanity.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Bumi Manusia

“Watching From Withing protagonist Dr. Jesse Baine says, "The only place I can fathom that is truly private is the space between your ears. Think about the sheer number of surveillance systems, automated ID tracking and police brain-print scanners. What is privacy anyhow? And, why would anyone protest the advancement of such tried and true [surveillance] technology? That’s a bit like rising-up against the aspirin!” -Daniel LaMonte”
― Daniel LaMonte, Watching From Within

“Suddenly the thought struck MacVeagh: President (Mark) Hollenbach must not be allowed to go into the conference with Zuchek (Russian premier). My God, Mark might be capable of anything. Who knew what Zuchek, a patient, steel-nerved negotiator, utterly devoted to Russia’s self-interest, vs Hollenbach, whose once brilliant mind now was obsessed with fancied tormentors and played like a child’s with the toy blocks of destiny.”
― Fletcher Knebel, Night of Camp David

“His knees had turned to water and he had had to sit down on the soft edge, his hands automatically taking her hot, dry hands while his mind, for some strange reason, instantly dredged up from his storehouse of memories his grandfather's tale of Magellan crossing a nameless sea in a still young world. He had seen, as he had looked into her eyes, the sea; depths beyond depths, and the tiny ships and white sails of grace moving along the rim of time. Almost without knowing it, without being aware that he was doing so, he kissed her fingertips one by one, as he told himself that this was what it meant, that to love was to regain the capacity to remember a world without names, to recall by virtue the whorl above the beloved's knucklebones and the blue of the veins beneath the skin the unbearable fragility of mornings in this country, to find October odors trapped in the skinfolds between her toes along with the scent of talcum powder and soap and human sweat. He moved then, without willing it, helplessly, and sank himself into the swamp of her delirium, as her fever broke and her bones melted in a cold sweat that drenched him and the bedsheets, soaking his chest, his legs, his armpits so that he thought he was making love to the monsoon and was himself dissolving into a needle spray of rain and the pungence of washed leaves and cleaned tree bark in a festival to end the dry season.”
― Ninotchka Rosca, State of War

“Republicans will never support you... Even in New York, you are the wrong color to run as a Republican.”
― Roger Alan Bonner, The Vote Trader

“ایوانف حرفش را پی گرفت: "بزرگترین جنایتکاران تاریخ امثال نرون و قوشه نبودند. گاندی ها و تالستوی ها بودند. صدای درونی گاندی بیشتر از تفنگ های بریتانیایی سد راه آزادی هندوستان بوده. تگر خودت را به سی سکه نقره بفروشی، معامله شرافتمندانه ای کرده ای؛ ولی اگر خودت را به وجدان خودت بفروشی؛ نوع بشر را رها کرده ای. تاریخ اساساً بی اخلاق است؛ وجدان ندارد. اگر بخواهیم تاریخ را بر اساس توصیه های حکیمانه مدارس مذهبی اداره کنیم؛ معنی اش این است که همه چیز را همان طور که هست رها کنیم. خودت هم این را مثل من می دانی. می دانی که این بازی چه خطر هایی دارد...”
― Koestler Arthur, Darkness at Noon

“آیا حتی یک حکومت را می شناسی که از زمان استقرار مسیحیت به عنوان دین رسمی، واقعاً یک سیاست مسیحی را دنبال کرده باشد؟ یکی را هم نمی توانی اسم ببری. در موقعیت های اضطراری _ و همواره سیاست در موقعیت اضطراری است_ حاکمان همیشه در شرایط استثنایی که مستلزم اقدامات دفاعی استثنایی بوده؛ موفق بوده اند. تا بوده، ملت ها و طبقات مردم همیشه در وضعیت دفاع از خود زندگی کرده اند؛ و این موضوع آن ها را تا ابد وادار می کند که عمل به انسان کرایی را به وقت دیگری موکول کنند”
― Koestler Arthur, Darkness at Noon

“یگانه قانون اخلاق سیاسی این است که هدف، وسیله را توجیه می کند؛ همیشه هم همین خواهد بود. هر چیز دیگری فقط وراجی بیهوده است و دردی دوا نمی کند”
― Koestler Arthur, Darkness at Noon

“There are aliens. You’re absolutely right about that [...] Never thought you’d hear anyone admit it, did you? Well. It’s true. Do you want me to let you in on another little secret?” [...]They do not give a shit about us. They look at us the way we look at amoebas under a microscope. They barely register our sad little planet’s existence. And they’re content to let us keep killing each other until we go extinct. [...]We’re not alone. But we might as well be.”
― Christopher Farnsworth, Deep State

“Seven minutes later, the final recipe for recovery of the great nation was read out to him when he stood, bending over the coffee table in front of the two financial doctors, while the water still dripped onto the carpet from the wet bath towel wrapped around the waist of the new Prime Minister of India.”
― Vinod Pande, Minister’s Mistress - Not only the sins come calling

“The shared torment of two separate individuals at the hands of their marital partners has a strange capacity to act as the glue for the bruised souls of both.”
― Vinod Pande, Minister’s Mistress - Not only the sins come calling