“Today we are apt to think of the Middle East, however defined, as something of a geographical unit. During the first half of the nineteenth century, however, and in fact until the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, the Mediterranean and the Levant were physically and psychologically very remote from the Red Sea, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf.”

“If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin, Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.”

“Even as the nineteenth century had to come to grips with the notion of human descent from apes, we must now come to terms with the fact that those apes were stoned apes.”

“Kitsch" is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth century, and from German is entered all Western languages. Repeated use, however, has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.”

“Sally...can no longer think of love as a reality, or even as a possibility, however remote.”

“The idea of a licentious West that many Arabs hold today closely mirrors the view that Europeans had of the Middle East a couple of centuries or more ago.”