“Every writer on the Orient (and this is true even of Homer) assumes some Oriental precedent, some previous knowledge of the Orient, to which he refers and on which he relies. Additionally, each work on the Orient affiliates itself with other works, with audiences, with institutions, with the Orient itself. The ensemble of relationships between works, audiences, and some particular aspects of the Orient therefore constitutes an analyzable formation[…]whose presence in time, in discourse, in institutions (schools, libraries, foreign services) gives it strength and authority.”

“Orientalism is after all a system for citing works and authors . __ Orientalism”

“The Orient and Islam have a kind of extrareal, phenomenologically reduced status that puts them out of reach of everyone except the Western expert. From the beginning of Western speculation about the Orient, the one thing the orient could not do was to represent itself. Evidence of the Orient was credible only after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalist’s work.”

“Instead of Orientals being the passive objects of the Western gaze, we must study the West. The way Orientals saw it must be a subject for deep investigation. Occidentalism is the other side of Orientalism”

“There's no such thing as 'no market'. Some books are just niche orientated that's all.”

“Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or . . . he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation.”