Neamat Imam

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“Becoming a nationalist is not a matter of decision; it means one has locked one’s mind forever. No reason or practical advice or evidence is strong enough to unlock it.”

“Everyone has to do something for survival, but that something does not have to define the real character of a person. I am what my head tells me I am. I am what my feelings say I am. I do not depend on anyone’s approval.”

“Our hearts have to cry to end our tears.”

“Look beyond your self-importance and pain. You will know yourself better.”

“No man is more of a stranger to you than you are to him. Receive him with trust.”

“‘Do not burden yourself with problems that you do not understand,’ he said. ‘If you do, then only the problems win. Human life becomes a tragedy.’”

“It is ego that makes a man.”

“‘Every man has a vision,’ Nur Hussain said. ‘Whether he understands it or not.”

“‘Tell me something about your life, ‘he said. ‘My life?’ the rickshaw-wallah asked. ‘I do not have one.’”

“This day says nothing different to me than to you.”

“Walking is always for tomorrow; yesterday’s walk, today’s walk, tomorrow’s walk – all for tomorrow. That is what this world is.”

“People want to see you own something as precious so that they are assured that you are not going to steal from them. The richer the leader, the more respected he is.”

“Imagine a day when this yard will be crowded with hundreds of leaders of the country. They will compete with each other, argue with each other, insult each other, throw shoes, leather bags, teacups, microphones and chairs at each other, break each other’s neck and determination, and then, at the end of the day, shamelessly compromise with each other for the sake of the party, and on the order of the leader.”

“The taller the building, the better the view.”

“‘So this is what famine does to a person,’ I thought as I walked back home. ‘It does not bring one to his knees only; it eats one alive. It is hungrier than a hungry man.’”

“There is no good or evil in the world. Only images.”

“It is not mandatory, I thought, that a society must have people who are vile and who rear filthiness instead of grit and ambition.”

“Suffering is not an otherworldly affair; it will never be that a person won’t be able to unearth the mystery of his suffering in his lifetime.”

“Shoes could be sold and resold, unlike a Constitution.”