Top 100 Ismail Quotes
#1. Shah Ismail had fallen victim to the rarely used, great Uzbek anti-Shiite potato and sturgeon curse, which required quantities of potatoes and caviar which were not easy to amass, and a unity of purpose among the Sunni witches which was likewise difficult to achieve.
Salman Rushdie
#2. Ismail Merchant was just the most seductive, passionate, outrageous, driven, genius of a man.
Glenn Close
#3. Eid happens twice a year - Eid ul-Fitr or "Small Eid" marks the end of the Ramadan fasting month, and Eid ul-Azha or "Big Eid" commemorates the Prophet Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son Ismail to God.
Malala Yousafzai
#4. I worked with Ismail Merchant on 'The Mystic Masseur,' I did 'Sakina's Restaurant,' I've done plays, I've been on Broadway, I've done movies, I've done TV ... but nothing has had the pop culture penetrative impact as 'The Daily Show' has. It's the nature of the beast.
Aasif Mandvi
#5. My heart is too valuable to allow hatred and jealousy to rent a spot.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#6. Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.
Ismail Haniyeh
#8. More than one-half of the world's major rivers are being seriously depleted and polluted, degrading and poisoning the surrounding ecosystems, thus threatening the health and livelihood of people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water.
Ismail Serageldin
#9. We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.
Ismail Merchant
#10. I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform.
Ismail Haniyeh
#11. Thick smoke like a herd of black horses was rising over the massive building and being blown around by the wind.
Ismail Kadare
#12. We repeat today that we are with the establishment of a Palestinian state on any liberated part of Palestinian land that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people, without recognizing Israel or conceding any inch of historical Palestine.
Ismail Haniyeh
#13. Who can say it's not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what's described here isn't the true essence of things?" He slowed down outside a door. "Haven't you ever heard old men sigh that life's a dream?
Ismail Kadare
#14. If Dr. Mahathir thinks that by ordering the police to act like gangsters he will frighten the people from supporting this reformation movement, he is dreaming. I think he has cut himself off from reality.
Wan Azizah Wan Ismail
#15. A mountaineer's house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests.
Ismail Kadare
#16. Well, the musicals give emphasis to love, longing, melancholy, sadness. All of that is always there.
Ismail Merchant
#17. It is well known that in the Communist countries, and especially in my own, Albania, readers were often called upon to demonstrate their vigilance by detecting and denouncing the 'errors' of authors.
Ismail Kadare
#18. The underlying problem remains the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the continuing Israeli assaults against our people.
Ismail Haniyeh
#19. It's about a young man who has climbed to fame and he discovers that his writing and the relationship with his wife are really more important for him than anything else.
Ismail Merchant
#20. Having spent the greater part of my life under a Communist dictatorship, I am very familiar with the Bolshevik mentality according to which an author in general, and an eminent author in particular, is always guilty, and must be punished accordingly.
Ismail Kadare
#22. Today three-quarters of the Palestinian people are displaced: there are 5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the world.
Ismail Haniyeh
#23. Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respect the results of democracy.
Ismail Haniyeh
#24. We don't have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.
Ismail Haniyeh
#25. The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water.
Ismail Serageldin
#26. The idea of quick methods to success in this life or the Afterlife is a deception, unrealistic and unislamic.
Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar
#27. Whatever you do, be gentle. People might have forgiven your harsh words but they may never forget how it stabbed their heart at that time!
Mufti Ismail Menk
#28. We need to return to the cosmopolitanism of Alexandria of yore, and marry that with the tolerance and democracy of Europe today
Ismail Serageldin
#29. I'm sure things will get better. So...it's okay to stop fighting.
Yosuke Kuroda
#30. Obstacles on our path are some of the tests of life. They make us stronger, better people and open up doors we had never imagined.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#31. Don't ever underestimate the capacity of a human being who is determined to do something.
Edna Adan Ismail
#32. At street corners, where walls join, I thought I could see some familiar features, like outlines of human faces, the shadows of cheekbones and eyebrows. They are really there, caught in stone for all time, along with the marks left by earthquakes, winters and scourges wrought by men.
Ismail Kadare
#33. We are pushing towards the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. If there is a real project that aims to resolve the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it.
Ismail Haniyeh
#34. For me as a writer, Albanian is simply an extraordinary means of expression - rich, malleable, adaptable. As I have said in my latest novel, 'Spiritus,' it has modalities that exist only in classical Greek, which puts one in touch with the mentality of antiquity.
Ismail Kadare
#35. Well, I am from India and I wanted to make films in English for the international market in India. So that was really the main thing, and then of course economically it was cheaper to make films in India.
Ismail Merchant
#36. If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world?
Ismail Kadare
#37. A sincere call to the Almighty can change what you may have thought was impossible to change. Never lose hope.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#38. Urdu can not die out because it has very strong roots in Persia. The language itself is not only just the language of the Muslims, but it's also the language of the Hindus.
Ismail Merchant
#40. If our lives are pleasing to Allah, and our goals are things which He approves then we can expect His Divine Assistance in accomplishing them, which includes Barakah in our time.
Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar
#41. It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.
Ismail Kadare
#42. Don't be distracted by the noise going on. Pause & reflect. You'll realize how much time you've wasted on all that nonsense around you.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#43. I know that many in Europe are unhappy with their governments' policies toward the Palestinians.
Ismail Haniyeh
#44. I work only in the morning from 10 to noon. I still write by hand. I interrupt my writing when I feel that I've discovered something beautiful or, on the contrary, when I feel discontent.
Ismail Kadare
#45. in the future, the defining metric for organizations won't be ROI (Return on Investment), but ROL (Return on Learning).
Salim Ismail
#46. We urge you to understand the Palestinian reality, and not to rush in and impose conditions and demands that ignore this reality and increase the suffering of the people.
Ismail Haniyeh
#47. The writer is always to some extent in exile, wherever he is, because he is somehow outside, separated from others; there is always a distance.
Ismail Kadare
#48. Doesn't the world see the suffering of millions of Palestinians who have been living in exile around the world or in refugee camps for the past 60 years? No state, no home, no identity, no right to work. Doesn't the world see this injustice?
Ismail Haniyeh
#49. The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.
Ismail Kadare
#50. (In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.)
Ismail Kadare
#51. The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners, and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Palestine. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.
Ismail Haniyeh
#52. This is how things come to pass in the world,' one of the princes is supposed to have said. 'Blood flows one way in life and another way in song, and one never knows which flow is the right one.
Ismail Kadare
#53. Get up to pray in the dark when all are asleep and see how your path is lit and your life begins to shine.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#54. When you strive in the way of the Almighty, you don't worry about being accepted or having the approval of others. You know your priority.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#55. If I manage to write something that I consider good and valuable in a particular place, that spot automatically has a special aura for me. In Albania, there are two cities where I have written the majority of my work: Gjirokaster, my home city, and Tirana.
Ismail Kadare
#56. Having left, for various reasons, the homeland of epic, they were uprooted like trees overthrown, they had lost their heroic character and deep-seated virtue.
Ismail Kadare
#57. If only my heart could abstain
from love.
The more I seethe with desire
The more I seem to attract.
Hilda Ismail
#58. I ask the American administration not to participate in any resolution that will double the suffering of the Palestinian people. I am convinced that the American people would not want to see the Palestinians suffer the way they do.
Ismail Haniyeh
#59. He who disagrees with you could be correct whilst he who cheers you on could be making a mistake. Ponder.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#60. Check yourself often and correct your faults. Quit blaming others. Take responsibility for your own life. That's the only way you can grow!
Mufti Ismail Menk
#61. small businesses have created eight million new jobs since 1990, while large ones have eliminated four million positions.
Salim Ismail
#62. Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods - the violent methods - that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world.
Ismail Haniyeh
#63. It's about a father and daughter and the daughter's friend and her relationship with her current husband.
Ismail Merchant
#64. Greater Albania?!", this is a mockery of an unprecedented cynicism.
Ismail Kadare
#65. We came to say, the Quran is our constitution, we are committed to God and his holy book. God willing, should they try to carry out their crime against the Quran, God will tear their state apart and they will become God's lesson to anyone who tries to desecrate the holy book.
Ismail Haniyeh
#66. I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter.
Ismail Kadare
#67. I reckoned they had probably begun to pour out their hearts and entrust each other with the subjects of the plays and novels they had written or planned to write. It was customary after serious drinking.
Ismail Kadare
#68. It is the Muslim's conception of himself as the khulifa of Allah on the earth that makes him the vortex of human history. Only as God's khulifa, and hence only in proper commitment to the vision of Islam, may man act responsibly in the totality of space-time.
Ismail Al-Faruqi
#69. Winter hurled more wind and rain at the city than it ever had before. Clouds dashed about in all directions emptying their thunder, hail and rain. The horizon was choked in fog.
Ismail Kadare
#70. The great universal literature has always had a tragic relation with freedom. The Greeks renounced absolute freedom and imposed order on chaotic mythology, like a tyrant.
Ismail Kadare
#71. Shiny musical instruments wailed, their mouths open like lilies.
Ismail Kadare
#72. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel - about 40% of the male population.
Ismail Haniyeh
#73. The victory of Hamas is not only based on the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has a vision and a program, and this is the reason why the Palestinian people chose Hamas. However, there is no doubt that the corruption helped Hamas's victory.
Ismail Haniyeh
#74. Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived.
Ismail Haniyeh
#75. This is where they keep the dreams about the end of the world, according to the inhabitants of places where the winters are very windy.
Ismail Kadare
#76. I thought for a long time about leaving Albania, but at the same time to play a role in its life.
Ismail Kadare
#77. Don't let past mistakes make you lose hope of achieving good. Some of those with the worst past have made a great future for themselves.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#78. In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.
Ismail Kadare
#79. I am of the opinion that I am not a political writer, and, moreover, that as far as true literature is concerned, there actually are no political writers. I think that my writing is no more political than ancient Greek theatre. I would have become the writer I am in any political regime.
Ismail Kadare
#80. We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood ... We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.
Ismail Haniyeh
#81. The Europeans and Americans have said the martyrdom operations are why Hamas has been put on the terrorist list. But now these operations have stopped. Did they then remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organisations? We do not launch wars. We are people resisting occupation.
Ismail Haniyeh
#82. In antiquity, there were three regions in southern Europe: Greece, Rome, and Ilyria. Albanian is the only survivor of the Ilyrian languages. That is why it has always intrigued the great linguists of the past.
Ismail Kadare
#83. For a writer, New York works well. Literary work is very elitist. I worked two hours a day, maximum, and the time after that was very agreeable. I walked a lot with pleasure. Those two hours augmented the day. I wrote more here than in Paris, an entire chapter of a new novel.
Ismail Kadare
#84. The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine.
Ismail Haniyeh
#85. When the Israeli leaders launched their expansionist war in June 1967 they never envisaged that 40 years later they would still be haunted by the consequences.
Ismail Haniyeh
#86. We promise you that we will not cede a single part of Palestine, we will not cede Jerusalem, we will continue to fight and we will not lay down our arms.
Ismail Haniyeh
#87. A few words of Hindi appear here or there, but it's all Urdu. I feel that if the popular culture, which is what Hindi films are, uses Urdu, it's not going to diminish.
Ismail Merchant
#88. The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!
Ismail Kadare
#89. I consider I've had a good day when, among the lines I've written, I've produced from my innermost core what I call 'the appearance of the pearl.' That could refer to a discovery, a sense of harmonious cohesiveness, or something like that.
Ismail Kadare
#90. Which Israel should we recognize? The Israel of 1917; the Israel of 1936; the Israel of 1948; the Israel of 1956; or the Israel of 1967? Which borders and which Israel? Israel has to recognize first the Palestinian state and its borders and then we will know what we are talking about.
Ismail Haniyeh
#91. This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one.
Ismail Merchant
#92. The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can't be created through decisions and initiatives. States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established.
Ismail Haniyeh
#93. Muslim children should be raised with the understanding that once they hit puberty they are adults and Mukallaf (responsible for their actions). This understanding is crucial to assist them in passing the tests of youth.
Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar
#94. Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible ... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.
Ismail Kadare
#95. Every passion or wicked thought, every affliction or crime, every rebellion or catastrophe necessarily casts its shadow before it long before it manifests itself in real life.
Ismail Kadare
#96. The tongue can cut deeper than the sword or heal faster than in the ward.
Mufti Ismail Menk
#97. For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes.
Ismail Kadare
#99. In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively.
Ismail Haniyeh
#100. We cannot deny that 80 or even 90 percent of the spiritual treasures from the past 3,000 years have come from Europe. There is no other Greek theatre anywhere else in the world. There is no other Shakespeare, Dante or Cervantes.
Ismail Kadare
