Leila Khaled Quotes

As a child of four, I found myself burdened by the adult problems of life and death, right and wrong. I, as a dreamer, living on the bare subsistence provided by a UN blue ration card, in a crowded room, on a side street in Sour, stand as a witness to Zionist inhumanity. I charge the world for its acquiescence in my destruction.

I've had casual boyfriends but never became really attached to any man. The older I grew the more attached I became to the revolution.

Mariam kept her eyes to the ground, on her shadow, on her executioner's shadow trailing her. Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it. She wished she could she Leila again, wished to hear the clangour of her laugh, ... Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who has loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings." --A Thousand Splendid Suns

Meanwhile, my fellow Fatehites in Kuwait were kind enough to find a role for me. They proposed that a group of us do something creative for the summer of 1968. They suggested we could perform two important tasks— assisting overworked mothers in the "refugee" camps and visiting the families of our martyrs. "Social work", I scoffed, "is not social revolution. I want to participate fully in the revolution.