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The Migrant
Paul Alkazraji
Top 10 Best Quotes
“You have a powerful story, Mehmed. It’s a great witness, and the writer, Edona, did a fine job of telling it. Sales are doing OK, in a modest way, but I wish it was doing better. With many things we do in faith, we don’t get to see the fruit with our own eyes. There may be much more out there that we don’t know about.”
“Out past the pimple of Lycabettus Hill the concrete apartment blocks in shades of beige, grey and white glinted in the morning sunlight, as if shards of broken glass had been strewn in among them.”
“As they climbed towards Delphi, the cypress trees lined the road like javelin heads, and when they passed its sanctuary of Apollo, a place pagans once thought of as the navel of the world, the light was beginning to fade with the sun…”
“A chipped concrete bunker shaped like an infantryman’s helmet was tilted insolently on a mound at the track’s edge.”
“The window glass was cold as Jude touched his nose to its surface. He looked north over the centre of Tirana and drank in the thrill of the panorama. From a restaurant in the Sky Tower he could see down over the lush, green square of land criss-crossed with paths that was Rinia Park. He had arranged to meet Edona there at 3pm. To his left the apartment blocks clustered densely away to the horizon in colours of mustard, olive and denim blue. Ahead he could make out the rouge and yellow government ministry buildings on the edge of Skanderbeu Square, and the white needle of the Et’hem Bey Mosque. His eyes turned to the east past the black glass panelled Twin Towers and concrete Pyramid to the traffic flowing up the Gjergj Fishta Boulevard, where the harsh mid-day sunlight was glinting off car roofs and windscreens. Beyond that, through a haze of heat and light smog, Mount Dajti rose up to the blue, utterly cloudless sky.”
“South of Larissa the landscape began to change. Jude watched an irrigation machine like a giant stick insect creeping over a field, and a tractor racing across another, raking up a dust cloud behind in a brown jet stream.”
“Just below him Mars Hill looked like a shiny, rose-tinted walnut, and the words from the book of Acts that Paul the apostle had spoken there ran through his mind. 'I see that in every way you Athenians are very religious. For as I walked through your city and looked at the places where you worship, I found an altar on which is written, ‘To an Unknown God.’ That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you.”
“Jude leant on the hotel balcony railing looking down over the rooftops of central Athens. Below him was a dense plantation of TV aerials, and a building with air-con units slung on the side like finger holds up a climbing wall.”
“I was just thinking about Byron,’ said Jude. ‘He went to Greece, you know, Athens, during his gap years. A young man doing the grand tour; loved ancient Greece and all it stood for; put it all down in a poetic travelogue, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage … yeah. There’s a bit about Albania in it too.’ Jude covered his mouth and coughed lightly. ‘“Morn dawns and with it stern Albania’s hills … birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear … and gathering storms around, convulse the closing year.”
“He’s hurting, Luan, and hurting those around him also. Please don’t let your bitterness increase towards him,’ said Jude, resting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Let it go … Not because he deserves that, but because you’ll need to do it, to survive yourself, to not become like him. Make the choice to do it, Luan, despite your feelings. And come with me too when we get back, to meet Shpetim’s murderer, Sheref, at the prison. Lay it to rest. Let’s move on from it together.”
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Book Keywords:
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