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Hearing Him Speak Is So Fun, Reassuring I Dare Say. You Can Say All You Like About Sihanouk: That He's An Atrocious Liar, A Madman, A Fraud, A Swashbuckler, An International Blot. You May Think That, But You Cannot Deny How In This Age In Which The Political Arena Seems To Generate Only Dull, Obtuse And Boring Characters With No Imagination, He's A Kind Of Miracle.

-Oriana Fallaci

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Hearing Him Speak Is

Oriana Fallaci

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Hearing Him Speak Is So Fun, Reassuring I Dare Say. You Can Say All You Like About Sihanouk: That He's An Atrocious Liar, A Madman, A Fraud, A Swashbuckler, An International Blot. You May Think That, But You Cannot Deny How In This Age In Which The Political Arena Seems To Generate Only Dull, Obtuse And Boring Characters With No Imagination, He's A Kind Of Miracle.

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Arafat Contradicts Himself Every Five Minutes. He Always Plays The Double-cross, Lies Even If You Ask Him What Time It Is.

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Without Khomeini, We Would Not Be Where We Are. What A Pity That, When Pregnant With Him, His Mother Did Not Choose To Have An Abortion.

Sometimes I Ask Myself Whether [indira Gandhi] Had, Even Then, A Certain Contempt For The System She Represented And, Years Later, Would Overthrow.

If A Man Is A Man And Not A Sheep In The Flock, He Has A Survival Instinct In Him That Leads Him To Fight Even If He Realizes He's Fighting In Vain, Even If He Knows He Will Lose.

True Power Does Not Need Arrogance, A Long Beard And A Barking Voice. True Power Strangles You With Silk Ribbons, Charm And Intelligence.

Physical Courage Is A Great Test.

Physical Courage

This Islam Business Kidnapped Me.

I'll Impose Upon You The Same Arrogance That Was Imposed On Me, And On My Mother, My Grandmother, My Grandmother's Mother: All The Way Back To The First Human Born Of Another Human Being, Whether He Liked It Or Not. Probably, If He Or She Had Been Allowed To Choose, He Would Have Been Frightened And Answered: No, I Don't Want To Be Born. But No One Asked Their Opinion, And So They Were Born And Lived And Died After Giving Birth To Another Human Being Who Was Not Asked To Choose, And That One Did Likewise, For Millions Of Years, Right Down To Us.

I Am Angry At The Jews For Many Things... If You Want To Take The Example Of America, How They Hold The Power, The Economical Power In So Many Ways, And The Press And The Other Kind Of Stuff... I Never Realized How It Happened And They Came To Control The Media To That Point. Why?

Europe Becomes More And More A Province Of Islam, A Colony Of Islam. And Italy Is An Outpost Of That Province, A Stronghold Of That Colony... In Each Of Our Cities Lies A Second City: A Muslim City, A City Run By The Quran. A Stage In The Islamic Expansionism.

One Day You And I Will Have To Have A Little Talk About This Business Called Love. I Still Don't Understand What It's All About. My Guess Is That It's Just A Gigantic Hoax, Invented To Keep People Quiet And Diverted. Everyone Talks About Love: The Priests, The Advertising Posters, The Literati, And The Politicians, Those Of Them Who Make Love. And In Speaking Of Love And Offering It As A Panacea For Every Tragedy, They Would And Betray And Kill Both Body And Soul.

[indira Gandhi] Looked Tired That Day, And All Of A Sudden I Exclaimed, 'deep Down I Don't Envy You, And I Shouldn't Like To Be In Your Place.' And She Said, 'the Problem Is Not In The Problems I Have, It's In The Idiots Around Me. Democracy, You Know...' I Now Wonder What She Meant By That Unfinished Phrase.

How Do You Dare To Ask Me For A Solution? It's Like Asking Seneca For A Solution. You Remember What He Did? He Committed Suicide!

I Have Reached The Conclusion That Those Who Have Physical Courage Also Have Moral Courage. Physical Courage Is A Great Test.

I've Found What I Was Looking For, Child: What People Call Love Between A Man And A Woman Is A Season. And If, At Its Flowering, This Season Is A Feast Of Greenery, At Its Waning, It's Only A Heap Of Rotting Leaves.

I Have Never Met A Man More Shy Than Clark Gable. He Was So Shy, You Couldn't Make Him Talk.

I Didn't Want To Kill A Man. I'm Not Capable Of Killing A Man. I Wanted To Kill A Tyrant.

I Leave Shreds Of My Soul On Every Experience.

America's Vulnerability Comes Precisely From Its Strength, Its Wealth, Its Power And Its Modernity. It's The Usual Story Of The Dog Chasing Its Own Tail.

It Brought Back To Mind The Injustice I Spoke Of, The Solitude That Oppresses Women Intent On Defending Their Own Destinies, Their Own Dreams, Their Own Mistakes.

I Defend Israel's Right To Exist, To Defend Themselves, To Not Let Themselves Be Exterminated A Second Time.

And Yet, Or Just For This Reason, It's So Fascinating To Be A Woman. It's An Adventure That Takes Such Courage, A Challenge That's Never Boring. You'll Have So Many Things To Engage You If You're Born A Woman. To Begin With, You'll Have To Struggle To Maintain That If God Exists He Might Even Be An Old Woman With White Hair Or A Beautiful Girl. Then You'll Have To Struggle To Explain That It Wasn't Sin That Was Born On The Day When Eve Picked An Apple, What Was Born That Day Was A Splendid Virtue Called Disobedience.

I Am A Danger To Myself If I Get Angry.

Listening To Someone Talk Isn't At All Like Listening To Their Words Played Over On A Machine. What You Hear When You Have A Face Before You Is Never What You Hear When You Have Before You A Winding Tape.

Whether It Comes From A Despotic Sovereign Or An Elected President, From A Murderous General Or A Beloved Leader, I See Power As An Inhuman And Hateful Phenomen. To The Same Degree That I Do Not Understand Power, I Do Understand Those Who Oppose Power, Who Criticize Power, Who Contest Power, Especially Those Who Rebel Against Power Imposed By Brutality.

War Is Something Arafat Sends Others To Do For Him. That Is, The Poor Souls Who Believe In Him. This Pompous Incompetent Caused The Failure Of The Camp David Negotiations, Clinton's Mediation.

I Feel Less Alone When I Read The Books Of Ratzinger.

There Are Moments In Life When Keeping Silent Becomes A Fault, And Speaking An Obligation. A Civic Duty, A Moral Challenge, A Categorical Imperative From Which We Cannot Escape.

We Do Not Understand These Americans Who, Like Adolescents, Always Speak Of Sex, And Who, Like Adolescents, All Of A Sudden Have Discovered That Sex Is Good Not Only For Procreating Children.

The Moment You Give Up Your Principles, And Your Values, You Are Dead, Your Culture Is Dead, Your Civilization Is Dead. Period.

Finally [indira Ganhi] Called A Beautiful Dark Little Boy Who Was Playing On The Lawn, And Embracing Him Tenderly, Murmured, 'this Is My Grandchild; This Is The Man I Love Most In The World.' It Was A Strange Sensation To Watch This Very Powerful Woman Embracing A Child.

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Listen: If I Am A Painter And I Do Your Portrait, Have I Or Haven't I The Right To Paint You As I Want?

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You Cannot Govern, You Cannot Administrate, With An Ignoramus.

I Have Expressed My Opinion Through The Written Word Through My Books, That Is All.

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We Are An Age Without Leaders. We Stopped Having Leaders At The End Of The 20th Century

Have You Ever Thought That War Is A Madhouse And That Everyone In The War Is A Patient?

To Have Realized Your Dream Makes You Feel Lost.

I Find It Shameful That In Nearly All The Universities Of Europe, Palestinian Students Sponsor And Nurture Anti-semitism.

You Belong Neither To God Nor The State Nor Me. You Belong To Yourself And No One Else.

Is It Right To Shoot The Poor Prostitute Or A Woman Who Is Unfaithful To Her Husband, Or A Man Who Loves Another Man?

The More Democratic And Open A Society Is, The More It's Exposed To Terrorism. The More A Country Is Free, Not Governed By A Police Regime, The More It Risks Hijackings Or Massacres Like The Ones That Took Place For Many Years In Italy And Germany And Other Parts Of Europe.

America Is God Equals America Equals Business Equals America Equals God.

Khomeini Was Not A Puppet Like Arafat Or Qaddafi Or The Many Other Dictators I Met In The Islamic World. He Was A Sort Of Pope, A Sort Of King - A Real Leader.

No Matter What System You Live Under, There Is No Escaping The Law That It's Always The Strongest, The Cruellest, The Least Generous Who Win.

Objectivity Does Not Exist - It Cannot Exist!.. The Word Is A Hypocrisy Which Is Sustained By The Lie That The Truth Stays In The Middle. No, Sir: Sometimes Truth Stays On One Side Only.

If You Put A Pistol Against My Head And Ask Which I Think Is Worse, Muslims Or Mexicans, I'd Have To Think A Moment, Then I'd Say The Muslims Because They've Broken My Balls.

I No Longer Have The Energy To Get Really Angry, Like I Used To.

Journalism Is An Extraordinary And Terrible Privilege. Not By Chance, If You Are Aware Of It, Does It Consume You With A Hundred Feelings Of Inadequacy. Not By Chance, When I Find Myself Going Through An Event Or An Important Encounter, Does It Seize Me Like Anguish, A Fear Of Not Having Enough Eyes And Enough Ears And Enough Brains To Look And Listen And Understand Like A Worm Hidden In The Wood Of History.

I Am Known For A Life Spent In The Struggle For Freedom, And Freedom Includes The Freedom Of Religion.

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I Am An Atheist, And If An Atheist And A Pope Think The Same Things, There Must Be Something True. There Must Be Some Human Truth That Is Beyond Religion.

America's A Hard School, I Know, But Hard Schools Make Excellent Graduates.

Why Do The People Humiliate Themselves By Voting? I Didn't Vote Because I Have Dignity. If I Had Closed My Nose And Voted For One Of Them, I Would Spit On My Own Face.

I Met Indira Gandhi In Her Office In The Government Palace. The Same Office That Had Been Her Father's - Large, Cold And Plain. She Was Sitting, Small And Slender, Behind A Bare Desk. When I Entered, She Got Up And Came Forward To Give Me Her Hand, Then Sat Down Again And Cut The Preliminaries Short By Fixing Me With A Gaze That Meant: Go Ahead With The First Question, Don't Waste Time, I Really Have No Time To Waste.

What's The Point Anyway - Of Suffering, Dying? It Teaches Us To Live, Boy. A Man Who Does Not Struggle Does Not Live, He Survives.

I Am Disgusted By The Anti-semitism Of Many Italians, Of Many Europeans.

I Cry, Sometimes, Because I'm Not 20 Years Younger, And I'm Not Healthy. But If I Were, I Would Even Sacrifice My Writing To Enter Politics.

Hearing Him Speak Is So Fun, Reassuring I Dare Say. You Can Say All You Like About Sihanouk: That He's An Atrocious Liar, A Madman, A Fraud, A Swashbuckler, An International Blot. You May Think That, But You Cannot Deny How In This Age In Which The Political Arena Seems To Generate Only Dull, Obtuse And Boring Characters With No Imagination, He's A Kind Of Miracle.

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