Quotes from Yasmina Khadra

Music is the true breath of life. We eat so we won't starve to death. We sing so we can hear ourselves live.

Get a grip on yourself. there's only one god here on earth, and that's you. If you don't like the world, make one you like better.

You can know all there is to know about life and mankind, but what do you really know about yourself?

Get a grip on yourself. there's only one god here on earth, and that's you. If you don't like the world, make one you like better.

we are the whole life that we have lived, its highs and lows, its fortunes and its hardships; we are the sum of the ghosts that haunt us...

This land does not belong to you. It belongs to that ancient shepherd whose ghost is standing next to you, though you refuse to see it. Since you do not know how to share, take your vineyards and your bridges, your paved roads and your railway tracks, your cities and your gardens and give back what remains to its rightful owners".

Vivre, c'est courir des risques tous les jours, Kurt. - Ça dépend dans quel sens on court. (p.47)

Je me demande encore si, tout compte fait, le monde n'étaient qu'apparences.

And yet we were very much alike; we'd lost our souls, and we were ready to destroy others.

Il te restera toujours tes rèves pour réinventer le monde que l'on t'a confisqué.

Si la ville était une illusion, la campagne serait une émotion sans cesse grandissante ; chaque jour qui s'y lève rappelle l'aube de l'humanité, chaque soir s'y amène comme une paix définitive.

Ce n'était pas une vie; on existait, et c'est tout.

There's no more painful love than the love you feel when you're in a railroad station and you exchange glances with someone whose train is headed in the other direction.

Sunset, springtime, the blue of the sea, the stars in the sky, all the things that entrance us exert their magic only in the orbit if woman.

The man who let the love of his life pass him by will end up alone with his regrets and all the sighs in the world won't soothe his soul.

As long as the world's been the world, there's been those who live with it and those who refuse to accept it.

Et puis, c'est la vie; elle ne nous prend que ce qu'elle nous a donné. Ni plus ni moins. (p.190)

La fortune, comme l,infortune, est une épreuve, et notre vocation est de la surmonter. (p.315)

Quand la femme n'est pas l'ambition suprême de l'homme, quand elle n'est pas la fin de toute initiative en ce monde, la vie ne mériterait ni ses joies ni ses peines

Posterity has never made the grave's embrace less cruel. It simply assuages our fear of death, because there is no better cure for out inevitable morality then the illusion of a beautiful eternity. But there is one illusion I still hold dear: that is the thought of an enlightened nation. That is the only future I still dream of.

Le regret est un état d'âme. Le remords est un cas de conscience. Et je n'ai ni l'un ni l'autre. (p.57)

the one, true unique beauty is woman. The rest, all the rest, exists simply to adorn her.

When dreams are turned away, death becomes the ultimate salvation….There are only two extremes in human madness: the instant when you become aware of your own impotence and the instant when you become aware of the vulnerability of others. It's a question of accepting one's madness…or suffering it.

Chaque homme est son propre dieu. C'est en choisissant un autre qu'il se renie et devient aveugle et injuste.