10 Quotes & Sayings By Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is a Canadian-born writer and attorney. His debut novel, American War, was published in 2013 and became a New York Times and international bestseller. He is the author of three other novels: The Girl Who Thought She Was Clever; On the Run; and The Battle for Tomorrow. He has also penned two nonfiction books: The Modern Islamic World and The Book of Khalid Read more

Omar received his J.D. from the University of Ottawa and his B.A. from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

1
What is the first anesthetic? Wealth. And if I take your wealth? Necessities. And if I demolish your home, burn your fields? Acknowledgement. And if I make it taboo to sympathize with your plight? Family. And if I kill your family? God. And God......Hasn't said a word in two thousand years. (136) Omar El Akkad
Sarat smiled at the thought.
2
Sarat smiled at the thought. "You couldn't just let us kill ourselves in peace, could you?"" Come now, " said Yousef. "Everyone fights an American war. Omar El Akkad
Everyone fights an American war.
3
Everyone fights an American war. Omar El Akkad
It seemed to Karina further proof that wartime was the...
4
It seemed to Karina further proof that wartime was the only time the world became as simple and carnivorously liberating as it must exist at all times in men's minds. Omar El Akkad
Rage wrapped itself around her like a tourniquet, keeping her...
5
Rage wrapped itself around her like a tourniquet, keeping her alive even as it condemned a part of her to atrophy. Omar El Akkad
6
And what she understood-what none of the ones who came to touch Simon’s forehead understood-was that the misery of war represented the world’s only truly universal language. Its native speakers occupied different ends of the world, and the prayers they recited were not the same and the empty superstitions to which they clung so dearly were not the same-and yet they were. War broke them the same way, made them scared and angry and vengeful the same way. In times of peace and good fortune they were nothing alike, but stripped of these things they were kin. The universal slogan of war, she’d learned, was simple: If it had been you, you’d have done no different. Omar El Akkad
7
Her anger at the young woman's stubbornness quickly prompted recollections of all the times she'd found herself on one side or another of these meaningless, bigoted demarcations; all the times she'd been made to feel alien to some stranger's expectation of what constituted the right and normal world---the color of her skin, the ethnicity of the man she'd chosen to marry, even her tomboy daughter. Omar El Akkad
8
All her life she'd had little interest in the workings of boys' minds, which she imagined only as a set of flimsy pinwheels turning in the direction of obvious things. Omar El Akkad
9
She wondered if all boys were like this, their meanness a self defense. Omar El Akkad