Quotes by Zia Haider Rahman

Zia Haider Rahman

Another effect of news articles is that the events, however frightening, can thus be consigned to the box of things that happen to other people, not us, and that we are doing things to bring them under control. This is the diet we’re fed all the time, so we acculturate to it. And news must, in turn, follow the form to which we – our bodies – are accustomed: describe the event, incite the fear, then say how it’s being addressed, how the herd’s alpha males are dealing with it.

Alpha Male

Frightening

People

Experience belongs to the actor, but the story belongs to the teller. We write so we will never forget.

Forget

Never Forget

Writing

I am sympathetic to the kind of faith that does not evangelize or raise banners but is the faith drawn on by a lone human being as a means of support or as an organizing principle or even as mere practice. It is faith that is born of humility and an understanding of one’s own frailty. I can recognize it because I have met many people who exhibit this kind of faith.

Humility

Mean

People

I don’t want you to think that I’m being willfully obtuse, but I’ve never really grasped how point of view could be regarded as a matter of choice independent of story. Point of view is intimately interwoven into the story that you want to tell – it is an aspect of it.

Choices

Independent

Thinking

I had a tough childhood, yes. I was born in rural Bangladesh to parents who had had no education beyond high school. We moved to the UK where I grew up in poverty, in some of the worst conditions in a developed economy, before moving to the projects – heaven – and I went to unremarkable schools before going to university. My father was a bus conductor first and then a waiter, and my mother a seamstress.

Father

Mother

Moving

I’m interested in how a person forms her beliefs, how that happens. Beliefs of all kinds make up the animating force in each of us. Without them we would be paralyzed, lifeless – the glove without the hand.

All Kinds

Belief

Kind

I’m not sure, however, that what I have amounts to faith in the sense commonly understood. I have difficulty understanding the function of the word “believe” in the realm of faith, a basic term in the grammar of every creed.

Believe

Difficulty

Understanding

News has a way of distancing us from events, even as it informs us about them. News articles almost always present both the event and the responses at the same time – how is President Barack Obama or Congress responding to the events? I think this reflects a deep need we have to feel that things are under control and that events are subject to our influence.

Influence

President

Thinking

Novels need readers of a certain kind, people who are patient and enjoy immersing themselves in another perspective for uninterrupted stretches of time. Reading habits might well be changing. People who pay for novels might overlap significantly with those who engage in Twitter and Facebook.

People

Perspective

Reading

One problem I have with talking about myself in the context of class divisiveness is that I can be – and indeed have been – used by others to demonstrate its absence and that it’s only a matter of hard work to move upward socially. After all, how could I complain about anything, if the retort is: “But look where you got to? It can’t be all that bad.” But this is nonsense as an argument quite aside from its empirical absurdity because no single case can invalidate a statistical claim.

Complaining

Hard Work

Moving

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All Kinds

Alpha Male

Beautiful

Belief

Believe

Choices

Complaining

Creative

Cutting

Difficulty

Disappoint

Father

Flower

Forget

Frightening

Garden

Habit

Hard Work

Humanity

Humility

Independent

Influence

Kind

Mean

Mother

Moving

Never Forget

Night

Notebook

People

Perspective

President

Reading

Reality

Surprise

Technology

Thinking

Understanding

World

Writing

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Quotes by Zia Haider Rahman

Zia Haider Rahman

Experience belongs to the actor, but the story belongs to the teller. We write so we will never forget.

I don’t want you to think that I’m being willfully obtuse, but I’ve never really grasped how point of view could be regarded as a matter of choice independent of story. Point of view is intimately interwoven into the story that you want to tell – it is an aspect of it.

I’m interested in how a person forms her beliefs, how that happens. Beliefs of all kinds make up the animating force in each of us. Without them we would be paralyzed, lifeless – the glove without the hand.

I’m not sure, however, that what I have amounts to faith in the sense commonly understood. I have difficulty understanding the function of the word “believe” in the realm of faith, a basic term in the grammar of every creed.

Novels need readers of a certain kind, people who are patient and enjoy immersing themselves in another perspective for uninterrupted stretches of time. Reading habits might well be changing. People who pay for novels might overlap significantly with those who engage in Twitter and Facebook.

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