Top Edward Said Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Edward Said Biography

Edward Wadie Said (Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد‎ [wædiːʕ sæʕiːd], Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory Palestine, he was a citizen of the United States by way of his father, a U.S. Army veteran.

Read about Edward Said in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Edward Said Quotes

Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.

Final, Finals, History, Inhuman, Practice, Resistance

Captain Ahab was a man possessed with an obsessional drive to pursue the white whale which had harmed him - which had torn his leg out - to the ends of the Earth, no matter what happened. In the final scene of the novel, Captain Ahab is being borne out to sea, wrapped around the white whale with the rope of his own harpoon and going obviously to his death. It was a scene of almost suicidal finality.

Ahab, Drive, Harmed, Men, Suicidal, White

Until the June 1967 war I was completely caught up in the life of a young professor of English. Beginning in 1968, I started to think, write, and travel as someone who felt himself to be directly involved in the renaissance of Palestinian life and politics.

1968, Directly, Renaissance, Thinking, War, Writing

It is very easy to make wild generalizations about Islam. All you have to do is read almost any issue of The New Republic and you'll see there the radical evil that's associated with Islam, the Arabs as having a depraved culture, and so forth. These are impossible generalizations to make in the United States about any other religious or ethnic group.

Culture, Depraved, Easy, Evil, Issues, Religious

[9
11] was not meant to be argued with. It wasn't part of any negotiation. No message was intended with it. It spoke for itself, which is unusual.

Intended, Messages, Spoke, Unusual, Were Not Meant To Be

The Arab rulers are basically unpopular. They are supported by the United States against the wishes of their people. In all of this rather heady mixture of violence and policies that are remarkably unpopular right down to the last iota, it's not hard for demagogues, especially people who claim to speak in the name of religion, in this case Islam, to raise a crusade against the United States and say that we must somehow bring America down.

Against, America, Names, People, Religion

The central fact for me is, I think, that the [role of the] intellectual. . . cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.

Central, Embarrassing, Embarrassing Questions, Forgotten, Issues, Thinking

This [terrorists attacks on 9
11] was part of nothing. It was a leap into another realm - the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It's important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.

Crazy, Fall, Part, People, Purposes

I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.

Book, Comic, Exactly, Firsts, Remember, Result

History is written by those who win and those who dominate.

Dominate, History, Win, Winning, Written

Note that there was no claim for these attacks [on 9
11]. There were no demands. There were no statements. It was a silent piece of terror.

Demand, Demands, Note, Pieces, Silent, Terror

The history of other cultures is non-existent until it erupts in confrontation with the United States.

Confrontation, Erupts, Other Cultures, States, United States

Most Arabs and Muslims feel that the United States hasn't really been paying much attention to their desires. They think it has been pursuing its policies for its own sake and not according to many of the principles that it claims are its own - democracy, self-determination, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, international law.

Determination, Freedom, Policies, Self, Think, Thinking

[9
11] was bloody-minded destruction for no other reason than to do it.

Bloody, Destruction, Reason

The people who perpetrated the terror of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings are something different because these people were obviously not desperate and poor refugee dwellers. They were middle class, educated enough to speak English, to be able to go to flight school, to come to America, to live in Florida.

America, Bombings, Class, English, Obviously, School

If you live in the [Middle East] area, you see [U. S actions] as part of a continuing drive for dominance, and with it a kind of obduracy, a stubborn opposition to the wishes and desires and aspirations of the people there.

Actions, Desire, East, People, Wish, Wishes

I have never known what is Arabic or English, or which one was really mine beyond any doubt. What I do know, however, is that the two have always been together in my life, one resonating in the other, sometimes ironically, sometimes nostalgically, most often each correcting, and commenting on, the other. Each can seem like my absolutely first language, but neither is.

Doubt, Like, Together, Two

Ironically, many of people, including Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen, were, in fact, nourished by the United States in the early eighties in its efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

Effort, Including, Nourished, People, States, United States

Since the 1960s, we have seen the failure of the melting pot ideology. This ideology suggested that different historical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds could be subordinated to a larger ideology or social amalgam which is "America. " This concept obviously did not work, because paradoxically America encourages a politics of contestation.

America, Cultural, Diversity, Failure, Justice, Melting

It [9
11] transcended the political and moved into the metaphysical. There was a kind of cosmic, demonic quality of mind at work here, which refused to have any interest in dialogue and political organization and persuasion. This was bloody-minded destruction for no other reason than to do it.

Mind, Organization, Political, Refused

1