Hello. Here is a list of 15 quotes that I liked and saved while reading The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh. I hope you will like them too. By the way, I am Deepak Kundu, an avid book reader, quotes collector and blogger.
The Nine Lives of Pakistan Quotes
- When the ISI men come to the door, the illusion of a democratic state melts away. Nobody can stop them – no judge, no lawyer, no ambassador, not even a minister. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- The United States and Pakistan had been feuding and falling in love for decades. People often compared their tempestuous, co-dependent relationship to a bad marriage, but it was more accurately the worst kind of forced marriage – a product of shared interests rather than values, devoid of genuine affection and scarred by a history of dispute and betrayal. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- If Pakistan was a person, he would be humourless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offence and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity and self-hatred. – Christopher Hitchens – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Depending on who you asked, Islam or the army were supposed to be the glue holding the place together. Yet both, in their own way, seemed to be tearing it apart. People stumbled from crisis to crisis, hoping to find answers. But they remained elusive. More concept than country, Pakistan strained under the centrifugal forces of history, identity and faith. Could it hold? – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- To me, Pakistan resembled one of those old Japanese puzzle boxes, comprised of secret compartments and hidden traps, which can only be opened in a unique, step-by-step sequence. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- For much of his life, Jinnah was purposefully vague about his beliefs; even today, he remains an enigma – aloof and distant, a half-sketch awaiting completion. He stares down from official portraits, inscrutable and rake-thin, sinking into an armchair with his legs neatly folded, giving away nothing. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Warm hospitality, smouldering pride, cold and clinical revenge – thus it has always been among the Pashtuns. Their homeland straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a thousand miles of rock, soil and sand stretching from the searing red deserts of Balochistan to the glistening peaks of the Hindu Kush. They number about thirty-three million people in Pakistan and fifteen million in Afghanistan. Theirs is a history of pride and dogged defiance against would-be conquerors – from Alexander the Great to the Mughals, the British Raj to the Soviet Union. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- The never-ending battle for supremacy between military and civilian leaders, was the biggest fight you could pick in Pakistan. It was also the most dangerous one. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Muscle was a prerequisite to survival in Karachi, and everyone used the police to their own ends: the politicians, the army generals, even the criminals. A good cop knew how to play the system – when to swim with the tide of fortune and when to change course; when to take money and when to give it; when to break the law and when to enforce it. The cops were the grease of the city, the element that lubricated its cogs and kept the whole messy, corrupt, infernal machine turning. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- If Pakistani cities were caricatures, most would be easy to draw. Lahore is corpulent and languid, stretched out in a shalwar kameez, twirling its moustache over a greasy breakfast. Islamabad cuts a more clipped figure, holding court in a gilded drawing room, proffering Scotch and political whispers. Peshawar wears a turban or a burka, scuttling among the stalls of an ancient bazaar. But Karachi is harder to sketch. It has too many faces: the shiny-shod businessman, rushing to the gym; the hardscrabble labourer who sends his wages to a distant village; the slinky young socialite, kicking off her heels as she bends over a line of cocaine. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Quetta was the hardest place to work in Pakistan, a city of shadows and secrets that yielded easily to nobody. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Seeking the absolute truth on anything could be a fool’s errand in Pakistan. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Pakistan is defined by three faultlines – the three c’s. The first is conflict. The generals don’t mind if you write about that because it highlights the threat from their enemies. The second is crisis. That’s also fine – it shows the weakness of the politicians. But the third one, the contradictions … that, they will never tolerate. – Sufi Leghari – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- There had been a time when Pakistanis could afford to sneer at India, with its heavily centralised economy and suffocating bureaucracy, a land of cheap polyester kurtas and wheezing old rattletraps. Pakistan had smoother roads, smarter airlines and flashier hotels. But their fortunes starkly diverged after 2001, when Pakistan plunged into conflict and India’s economy soared. Now, Indians were sending satellites into space and snapping up British luxury carmakers, and it was the Pakistanis who looked sclerotic. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh
- Although Pakistan was built on faith, Islam offered an incomplete identity. Negation of India filled the void. Viewed through this lens, so much of what Pakistan did – the coddling of jihadis, the scheming in Afghanistan – seemed to stem from a gnawing insecurity. Pakistan had to be everything India was, and was not. – Quote from The Nine Lives of Pakistan book by Declan Walsh