Browsing Topic Best Beirut Quotes

If you tell the truth, you don’t need a long memory.

There hasn’t been a lot written about it in the Western media. But in the Arab world, and Western Asia as a whole, Baghdad was always known as a famously bookish, intellectual city. There’s an old saying that Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, and Baghdad reads.

All you need is a pool table, beer, an electric jukebox and good conversation. The day a girl beats me in a game of Beirut [a kind of beer pong] is a good sign!

As I searched the atlas for somewhere to run to, Hugh made a case for his old stomping grounds. His first suggestion was Beirut, where he went to nursery school. His family left there in the midsixties and moved to the Congo. After that, it was Ethiopia, and then Somalia, all fine places in his opinion. ‘Let’s save Africa and the Middle East for when I decide to quit living,’ I said.

It’s not Beirut or Bosnia.

I don’t want to turn into one of those pathetic creatures who are always homesick, always saying I wish I were still in Beirut. I don’t want to become like you, split between here and there. I know I’m not happy here, but why should I be unhappy in two countries?

We may be unable to maintain even a semblance of order in our urban schools, which increasingly resemble happy hour in Beirut. But, hallelujah, we sure know how to protect kids from God.

When I look back on my childhood, I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

To the stern student of affairs, Beirut is a phenomenon, beguiling perhaps, but quite, quite impossible.

Many of Islam’s apologists insist that suicide bombing is not Islamic because the Koran forbids suicide. Mmm-hmm. So where are all the Muslims gathering in mass demonstrations to vehemently condemn this practice that slanders their religion? Why does contemporary Islam promote ‘martyrdom’ as the highest duty of Muslims? Why are photographs of suicide bombers plastered everywhere in Beirut? Because Islam is what Islam does.

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

I have had a strong and a long relationship on national security, I’ve been involved in every national crisis that this nation has faced since Beirut, I understand the issues, I understand and appreciate the enormity of the challenge we face from radical Islamic extremism. I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.

I was actually lost in Beirut on the way home.

Hair is also a problem. I remember once, when I was reporting from Beirut at the height of the civil war, someone wrote in to the BBC complaining about my appearance.

Lebanon was at one time known as a nation that rose above sectarian hatred; Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All of that was blown apart by senseless religious wars, financed and exploited in part by those who sought power and wealth. If women had been in charge, would they have been more sensible? It’s a theory.

I’d known the people at Rolling Stone for a while. I’d gone to them with a piece I’d done on Beirut for Vanity Fair that Vanity Fair didn’t want to publish, because they said I was making fun of death… This was Tina Brown.But they paid me for it. So I’ve got this big chunk of a piece, and Rolling Stone liked it, but they thought it was a little dated. But then they called me back and asked me to do a similar piece about the Turks and Caicos Islands, where the whole government had been arrested for dope smuggling. That was fun.

The wise traveler [to Beirut] will pack shirts or blouses with ample breast pockets. Reaching inside a jacket for your passport looks too much like going for the draw and puts armed men out of countinence

We runnin around in thousand-dollar clown suits,
Better get some boots when Lucifer turn your city to Beirut.

Beirut is where I was born and raised.

Who imagined that what I said upon my departure from Beirut would become a reality, when I said the volcano and typhoon which started in Beirut will not stop.

In 1982, when Alexander Haig and [Ariel] Sharon put this plan to invade the south of Lebanon and Beirut, they imagined that in two or three or five days, they can demolish the PLO and destroy its infrastructure. What happened? The longest Arab – Israeli confrontation.

Putting people in a room and strapping wires to their wrist to find out if I make them tingle when I’m telling them about Beirut is a long way from Edward R. Murrow.