Algiers Quotes

“[…] I began to see Algiers as one of the most fascinating and dramatic places on earth. In the small space of this beautiful but congested city intersected two great conflicts of the contemporary world. The first was the one between Christianity and Islam (expressed here in the clash between colonizing France and colonized Algeria). The second, which acquired a sharpness of focus immediately after the independence and departure of the French, was a conflict at the very heart of Islam, between its open, dialectical — I would even say “Mediterranean” — current and its other, inward-looking one, born of a sense of uncertainty and confusion vis-à-vis the contemporary world, guided by fundamentalists who take advantage of modern technology and organizational principles yet at the same time deem the defense of faith and custom against modernity as the condition of their own existence, their sole identity.

[…] In Algiers one speaks simply of the existence of two varieties of Islam — one, which is called the Islam of the desert, and a second, which is defined as the Islam of the river (or of the sea). The first is the religion practiced by warlike nomadic tribes struggling to survive in one of the world's most hostile environments, the Sahara. The second Islam is the faith of merchants, itinerant peddlers, people of the road and of the bazaar, for whom openness, compromise, and exchange are not only beneficial to trade, but necessary to life itself.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, Travels with Herodotus

“Just as the Mediterranean separated France from the country Algiers, so did the Mississippi separate New Orleans proper from Algiers Point. The neighborhood had a strange mix. It looked seedier and more laid-back all at the same time. Many artists lived on the peninsula, with greenery everywhere and the most beautiful and exotic plants. The French influence was heavy in Algiers, as if the air above the water had carried as much ambience as it could across to the little neighborhood. There were more dilapidated buildings in the community, but Jackson and Buddy passed homes with completely manicured properties, too, and wild ferns growing out of baskets on the porches, as if they were a part of the architecture. Many of the buildings had rich, ornamental detail, wood trim hand-carved by craftsmen and artisans years ago. The community almost had the look of an ailing beach town on some forgotten coast.”
― Hunter Murphy, Imogene in New Orleans

“The river breeze washed over him. He saw the magnificent views of the city and the bridge connecting Algiers Point to New Orleans. He marveled at the crescent shape of New Orleans as the ferry traveled nearly parallel to the curve in the Mississippi River.”
― Hunter Murphy, Imogene in New Orleans

“Mad, you must see me mad; your opinion is awash to me as long as I am crazed by love. I welcome this folly that you give to me with great estate. Thief? Rascal? I did what others did and what others had me do and we are all doomed, but I do not regret for one instant the coming of events of this most splendid night. You should have seen how carefully I proceeded and how I found love in the most dreadful of streets, during my most mourning of states and on the most propitious of nights. Play samartian to the fool, champion to the underdog. So to speak, I am a hubris acolyte of love.”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sons of Algiers

“As I finished my seventh beer, my loss of hope was replaced by despair. How I miss the days where the scent of alcohol lurked into my nose but not into my brain, with a drunk brain there is nothing between the act and the thought, and under this vichyssoise of beers I now veer the most verbose”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sons of Algiers

“Codolyc 30 mg
And the cops come out of the woodwork
We hide in the holes we call home
Catch us if you can
And I hear la voix de ville humming in my head
And I see the sirens of the seven villes moving ahead
To come and greet the connoisseur of paths
Me I say « Bravo» and «Long live death»”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sins of Algiers

“Raise my astral body to the space
And may the angels take me to higher plains
To the density where poets are gods,
Where my poems won’t be in vain
Look at the cities from up high
And see how bright Algiers can shine ;
To tell myself that, you, where you are,
You are the most sparkling light.”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sins of Algiers

“Now I give this rascal weight from off my head
The pride of a streetborn artist from off my chest
With my own hands I renounce my earthly claims
With my own sins I ink this very book
In this vaudevillian theater we’ve all had our plays
Of wisdom, folly, love songs and lamentations of twin flames”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sins of Algiers

“Now I bid tender night to the dormant martyrs below
To the one thousand and one night, to the angry shining stars above
To the vaudevillian theatre, to the troubadours and mendiants within
To us personas of a forgetten tragedy and long acts playing without
To you Mother Algiers”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sins of Algiers

“Behind my words are my hopes

And behind my hopes is an angel singing my death and yours
I said to her "It's the ending of a cycle and the ending of me in your life"
She is now awake to the sound of nature and the angel's voice
We are soaring in the approaching stars
I am dreaming and cannot comprehend it
I have seen the stars
Dear stars: the awakening and the loss, we are born and fall
Dear stars, you too are above and lost and hanging like a booklet unread yet open for us all

Behind my eyes is a secret
I vouched to never share it
I see the selfsame eyes of my mother and my grand mother
And the eyes of my great grandmother, whom I never knew but felt
And so this line unto the Alef and the omega point at infinity
With my eye still I see the light, the crow that sees everything and smiles
And knows everything and smile
We comprehend a moment through him and smile
I see all around my skin and beyond
I have sung one thousand songs on the electric body
I have invented my self
I have killed my self
I am just a form of English words written by an Algerian spirit”
― Benarrioua Aniss, Sins of Algiers

“Mission work in Algeria is far from being the chief, still less it is the exclusive object of your ambition. The end and aim of our Apostolate is the evangelisation of Africa, of the whole of Africa, of that almost impenetrable interior in whose dark depths are the last hiding places of a most brutal barbarism, where cannibalism still prevails, and slavery in its most degrading forms. To this work you have consecrated yourselves by solemn vow and promise. There is not a single spot along the shores washed by the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean, where we do not find the footsteps of the messengers of God's mercy to the poor degraded sons of Cham. But although in all the countries bordering the Ocean we find numerous bodies of Apostolic Missionaries engaged in spreading the light of the Gospel, far different is it with the interior of the Dark Continent, which has hitherto seemed impossible of access. From time to time individual travellers have tried to penetrate into the depths of this mysterious land, but nearly all have perished in the attempt to. lift the veil which enshrouds those unknown regions.”
― Charles Lavigerie