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“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
― Charles Dickens

“I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being.”
― Rai Aren

“أحياناً لا نتذكر إلا أكثر الاشياء غباءً، أكثر الاشياء استعصاءً على افهامنا، وكأننا حين نفهم الشيء، تنعدم حاجتنا به، فننساه”
― عدي جاسر الحربش, حكاية الصبي الذي رأى النوم

“حب ذو أبواب. إذا طرقتها ففتحت فهذا لا يعني أنك ستدخل. و إذا دخلت فهذا لا يعني أنك ستبقى. و إذا خرجت فهذا لا يعني أنك ستعود.”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“لكل قلب طريقة محددة في التفجع لا يجوز أن ينسخها من قلب آخر”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“تعرفت رفيقا ذميما اسمه القلق”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“تعرّفت رفيقاً ذميماً اسمه القلق. لم أسأله مرافقتي ولم يستأذني في ذلك. قفز فوق كتفيّ مثل قردٍ مجنون ولم يفارقني بعدها قط. كلما طردته من كتف قفز إلى الآخر. وكلما طردته منهما معاً تعلّق بجذع شجرة بعض الوقت ثم لا يلبث أن ينقضّ على رقبتي مرةً أخرى. لم يتركني أهجع ليلةً حتى يجعل صباحها قاتماً مثل قرارة بئر. ولم أتنفس طمأنينة الصباح حتى يجعل الغروب يأتي مثل وحشٍ سيتغذى عليّ طيلة الليل. ضاقت في عيني الدنيا حتى لم أعد أرى شيئاً في حجمه الحقيقي. كل شر يبدو هائلاً ومخيفاً وكل خير يبدو طارئاً وضئيلاً. أرتجف في هدأة الليل أحياناً من فرط القلق مثل محمومٍ بدون حمّى. ويأتي الصباح وقد أنهكني التعب وكأن عينيّ لم تغمضا طيلة الليل. صغرت في عينيّ كل شؤون الحياة حتى صار ينقضي يومٌ بأكمله لا أقوم فيه بشيء إلا صلواتي. أسابيع تليها أسابيع والقلق هو محرك كل ساكن ومسكِّن كل متحرك في حياتي التي أضحت قاتمةً وشائكة. أهمّ بالشيء فأقلق منه فأتركه، وأكون بلا شغل فأقلق فأهمّ بأشياء”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.”
― Warsan Shire

“بين الوحي و العقل جسر التفسير. و بين الوحي و القلب جسر التأويل. و بين العقل و القلب جسر الحب.”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“إن طريق الله هو الطريق العام، أما الطريق إلى الله فيتعدّد بعدد أنفاس الخلائق.”
― محمد حسن علوان, موت صغير

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
― Lao Tzu

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
― Aldous Huxley

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Unscripted, unedited, and wholly authentic people are almost universally admired, especially if they have flaws, are not afraid to make live, red-blooded mistakes, and rather than trying are busy simply being.”
― Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge�� is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”
― Bill Bullard

“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”
― Virginia Woolf

“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”
― Anne Herbert

“The only sin is mediocrity.”
― Martha Graham

“Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

“April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena