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“Worry only about what you control. The rest is war.”
― Matthew J. Hefti, A Hard And Heavy Thing

“Two people, one city, different times; connected by a memoir. Can love exist in a city destined for decades of misery?”
― Ahmad Ardalan, The Gardener of Baghdad

“Muslim and non-Muslim from across the world flocked to Baghdad to be part of Al-Ma'mun's project "Bait Al-Hekmah" or "House of Wisdom”
― Firas Alkhateeb, Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past

“I’m back. I’m still here. I never left.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“In the 10th century, Baghdad instituted a licensing exam that all doctors had to take before practicing as physicians”
― Firas Alkhateeb, Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past

“Always I am speaking English on behalf of fools”
― Michael Pitre, Fives and Twenty-Fives

“When I went back to Iraq again, after the liberation was complete, I was myself engaged on a sort of "dig", and I decided to travel with Paul Wolfowitz. It was in its own way an archaeological and anthropological expedition. Here are some of the things we unearthed or observed. Unnoticed by almost everybody, and unreported by most newspapers, Saddam Hussein's former chief physicist Dr. Mahdi Obeidi had waited until a few weeks after the fall of Baghdad to accost some American soldiers and invite them to excavate his back garden. There he showed them the components of a gas centrifuge--the crown jewels of uranium enrichment--along with a two-foot stack of blueprints. This burial had originally been ordered by Saddam's younger son Qusay, who had himself been in charge of the Ministry of Concealment, and had outlasted many visits by "inspectors". I myself rather doubt that Hans Blix would ever have found the trove on his own.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“There is no way to imagine what it feels like to be shot at. I will never be with him when he is the most scared.”
― Melissa Seligman, The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion

“Afghanistan changed him, but Iraq sculpted him.”
― Melissa Seligman , The Day After He Left for Iraq: A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion

“We carry the world. They did. All those young men did. They carried the world, and it was heavy, and they didn't know what to do with it. Was this the rest? Was this the war? Things had already spun out of control and they weren't always as black and white or as right or wrong as Nick liked to think.”
― Matthew J. Hefti, A Hard And Heavy Thing

“The cost of war is like an immeasurable tremor that knows no borders, its shockwaves reverberating across the world resulting in universal suffering.”
― Aysha Taryam

“The increased incidence of abductions represents a major challenge within the ongoing humanitarian crises. The kidnapped archbishops have suffered terribly, and their families have suffered immensely not knowing what has become of them.”
― Widad Akrawi

“Allowing Islamic Sharia law into the constitutions of the U.S-created Islamic (!) Republic of Afghanistan and Republic of Iraq in 2004 and 2005 was as foolhardy as it would have been to write emperor-worship and Shinto militarism into Japan's 1946 constitution.”
― Robert Spencer

“I don’t recall ever seeing my mother as a human being. She would always be weeping and wailing in the corner of the kitchen like a dog tied up to be tormented. My father would assail her with a hail of insults, and when her endurance broke, she would whine aloud, ‘Why good Lord? Why? Take me and save me.â€� Only then would my father stand up, take the cord out of his headdress, and whip her nonstop for half an hour, spitting at her throughout.”
― Hassan Blasim

“He took a deep breath in, still managing himself as if he were resisting temptation. He was a soldier, his father was in the service, too. Crying wasn't something Morell men did. They just didn't.

He hadn't cried at Robbie Morell's funeral.

So he wasn't going to now.”
― Luke Taylor, Shatterpoint Alpha

“Then he thrust the knife into my stomach and said:
"You're shaking.”
― Hassan Blasim, The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq

“You’ll never let me go, will you? Giving me the space and freedom I want isn’t your idea of love, is it? You’d rather cut me deep on earth to spare me pain in hell, whereas I think hell is right here.”
― Matthew J. Hefti, A Hard And Heavy Thing

“If feels good to live after death. It feels good to not be dead. It feels so good to find myself alive and flying home. The music plays in my ears and I float further and further away from war. Fucking Baghdad.”
― Michael Hastings, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story

“Oh, don't let him pull that 'Pearl Harbor I'm going off to war' stuff on you.”
― Michael Hastings, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story

“It was at that point that I started probing them about what they wanted from America. Here's what they told me: "We want our kids to go out and play. We want them to go out and play and not feel like they're going to get hurt. I want my kid to not be on the computer all day long. I want him to go outside and play. I want him to not be on computer games. I want my kids to go to school. I want my wife to be happy. I want..."
"That's what we cant back home," I said.
"Why would it be so different?" he said. Why would you think that what I want in my quality of life is so vastly different from yours?”
― David Chrisinger, See Me for Who I Am: Student Veterans' Stories of War and Coming Home

“The cable is evidence of a widespread US policy during the occupation of shooting first and asking questions later, as well as detaining anyone and everyone "suspected" of having any links to attacks on US forces.”
― Dahr Jamail

“I feel like so much has been left undone. There are friends I won't see before I leave, there are bills I still need to pay. I haven't written as much as I've wanted, and there are countless things I've said that I wish I could correct, but this is a process that will never end. When my grandmother died she left a library full of books she never finished reading. This is how I feel now.”
― Jason Christopher Hartley, Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq

“I'm obsessed with trying to recount events as accurately and honestly as possible, but in practice the only thing I'm really any good at is telling you how I feel.”
― Jason Christopher Hartley, Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq

“The Air Force was confused about what it wanted me to be when I grew up. I applied for an ROTC scholarship out of high school because I wanted to be an astronaut. None of my teachers had ever broken the news to me that I couldn’t fly into space, so the third-grade dream remained.”
― Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

“To everyone except a dedicated ideologue, it was pretty obvious that we invaded Iraq not because of our love of democracy but because it's maybe the second- or third-largest source of oil in the world and is right in the middle of the major energy-producing region. You're not supposed to say this. It's considered a conspiracy theory.”
― Noam Chomsky, Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

“For the good that I would: I do not, but the evil which I would not, I do.”
― Matthew J. Hefti, A Hard And Heavy Thing

“A life was a story, and a story was nothing more than a promise that something bad would happen. It was a promise that people would desire and want and ache and burn, but it was not a promise that they would find what they sought.”
― Matthew J. Hefti, A Hard And Heavy Thing

“From seven hundred journalists at the beginning of March, the number had dwindled to about one hundred and fifty—print reporters, TV correspondents, photographers, cameramen, and support personnel. At the press center I encountered Kazem, who only a week before I had asked for help with my visa. “Why are you staying when everyone else is leaving?â€� he asked. I took a chance and replied in Arabic. Some journalists, I said, are as samid as the Iraqi people. Samid means “steadfastâ€� and “braveâ€� and is the adjective most often used by Iraqis to describe themselves. Kazem laughed and threw his arm around my shoulder.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“The bombing started up again, with explosions all around us, in broad daylight, but no one in the restaurant even flinched. Iraqis seemed numb after a quarter century under Saddam’s whip-hand rule. It was heartbreaking to see what a harsh dictatorship can do to the human soul. In less than a week, I had grown almost inured to explosions and fires.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“Then someone cried out, “Suicide bomber!â€� The crowd panicked. In the ensuing stampede, terrified pilgrims ran in both directions, many colliding in the middle of the bridge. A side railing collapsed under their weight, and scores leaped into the water whether they could swim or not. Hundreds were trampled to death. More than a thousand died. Hundreds of pairs of sandals were scattered around the bridge, left behind when pilgrims made their desperate dives into the river. I was given all of seventy-five seconds to tell the story on the Nightly News.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East