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“Distracted from distraction by distraction”
― T.S. Eliot

“Two kinds of greedy people never get satisfied; the seeker of knowledge and the seeker of this world”
― Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib, Nahjul Balagha

“convivial”
― Kate Moore, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

“As I took off the rumpled sheets, the smell of the people who had slept in them would lift up into the air. There was the round, almost sweet sweat smell of a child who had spent a day happily exploring, or the sharper-edged odor of one who'd gone to bed unhappy. With the bigger beds, I came to understand the way the scents of two people could mingle as effortlessly as rainwater, and to recognize the times they stayed apart, the smells resolutely separate. Sometimes there were those unreal perfumes, jumbling and talking too loudly- but underneath them I could always find the person. Sadness, like the dark purple juice of a blackberry. Fear, like the metallic taste of an oncoming storm. Love, which smelled like nothing so much as fresh bread. In an odd way, the game wasn't that different from reading the smells of our island. Scents were always about what was growing and what was dying. What would last through the next season. This was just with people instead of trees or flowers or dirt.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

“Something in me was changing season too. I was no longer striving, fighting to change the unchangeable, not clenching in anxiety at the life we’d been unable to hold on to, or angry at an authoritarian system too bureaucratic to see the truth. A new season had crept into me, a softer season of acceptance. Burnt in by the sun, driven in by the storms. I could feel the sky, the earth, the water and revel in being part of the elements without a chasm of pain opening at the thought of the loss of our place within it all. I was a part of the whole. I didn’t need to own a patch of land to make that so. I could stand in the wind and I was the wind, the rain, the sea; it was all me, and I was nothing within it. The core of me wasn’t lost. Translucent, elusive, but there and growing stronger with every headland.”
― Raynor Winn, The Salt Path

“I fight with words, and I use them well.”
― Lauren Blakely, Asking for a Friend

“أَعطنا، يا حبّ، فَيْضَكَ كلَّه لنخوض
حرب العاطفيين الشريفةَ، فالمناخ ملائم،
والشمس تشحذ في الصباح سلاحنا،
يا حبُّ لا هدفٌ لنا إلا الهزيمةَ في
حروبك.. فانتصرْ أَنت انتصرْ، واسمعْ
مديحك من ضحاياكَ: انتصر سَلِمَتْ
يداك وَعدْ إلينا خاسرين... وسالما”
― محمود درويش

“There is no pretending," Jace said with absolute clarity. "I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“القهوة لا تُشرب على عجل، القهوةٌ أخت الوقت تُحْتَسى على مهل، القهوة صوت المذاق، صوت الرائحة، القهوة تأمّل وتغلغل في النفس وفي الذكريات”
― محمود درويش, ذاكرة للنسيان

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison

“الحب في مدينتا ثورة يائسة وانقلاب فاشل لن يكتب لهما النجاح إطلاقاً”
― أثير عبدالله, أحببتك أكثر مما ينبغي

“أجمل لحظة في الحب هي قبل الإعتراف به. كيف تجعل ذلك الارتباك الأول يطول. تلك الحاله من الدوران التي يتغير فيها نبضك وعمرك أكثر من مرّة في لحظة واحدة.. وأنت على مشارف كلمة واحدة.”
― أحلام مستغانمي, الأسود يليق بك

“أنت لست جميلاً ولا أنا جميلة . الحب وحده هو الجميل والحب وحده يرينا الجمال”
― بهاء طاهر, نقطة النور

“الغياب بيقتل قصص الحب الصغيره و بيقوى قصص الحب الكبيره...زى الرياح ما بتتطفى شمعه على الترابيزه و بتزود حريقه فى الغابه”
― عمر طاهر, جر ناعم

“If there must be a moon, let it be high,
a high moon made in Baghdad, neither Arab, nor Persian,
nor claimed by the goddesses all around us.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

“For readers worldwide, the attraction of romance novels seems to be that they provide hope, strength, and the assurance that happy endings are possible. Romance makes the promise that no matter how bleak things sometimes look, in the end everything will turn out right and true love will triumph -- and in an uncertain world, that's very comforting.”
― Leigh Michaels, On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells

“As the sun began to rise, the man reached out to the woman, and they clasped hands. He cradled her, and languidly they lifted themselves up to their feet, their bodies brushing, their eyes lost in each other's. Sensuously, deliberately, they danced, moving as though they were one, their body language smooth as their limbs carefully unfolded. They twirled and rocked, intertwined and separated, nearly leaning onto one another but barely touching, their movements sometimes tender, sometimes almost violent...Moments passed while the dancers held tight to each other, as though their bodies were melting together. The expression on their features as they lifted their faces to the sky was one of unimaginable joy.”
― Hannah Fielding

“You ought to know, you were my best friend. You were. I know you loved me. I loved you.
No one should have gone through what we went through, but we did. And it kills me to think of it.
But I didn't love you like you loved me. I don't hate you for that. It just makes me sorry, that there isn't someone else who could love you better.
I know when you think about how I went, you'll get it. I was always uneasy about being alive. The idea of being dead makes me feel clear. When I think of it. It makes me think peace, peace, peace. It makes me happy. I am looking forward to it, to the absence of everything. And so I want you to be happy for me, that this is better for me. That I found what I needed. I know you won't be. But it's the last thing I want. You happy.”
― Alexander Chee, Edinburgh

“ويكثر قول الشعر في الحرب لا الهوى..
لأن الهوى لو قيس بالحرب جارح
/
وفي كل حرب ثم حق وباطل..
وفي الحب لا هذا ولا ذاك واضح
/
فإن قال لا أهوى فليس بصادق..
وإن قال أهوى أخجلته المذابح
/
وفي شعره معنى فصيح وغامض..
وفي صدره قلب مقيم ونازح
/
وشعب مقيم في خيام كأنها..
خيال من الشعر القديم يراوح
/
فقف عند رسم ما ترحل أهله..
ولكنه رسم لحزنك صالح
/
وما ضره هجر العشيرة إنما..
تقاعسها والموت غاد ورائح
/
إذا صار خذلان الأحبة دأبنا..
فمن عاش خسران ومن مات رابح
/
وإن كان هذا صلحنا وسلامنا..
فأخزى إلهي بعدها من يصالح”
― تميم البرغوثي

“أي زيتون ذاك الذي كنّاه، وأي زيتون ذاك الذي أصبحناه، يا سلوى، لم تكن خارج الوطن أكثر من زيتون شوارع أيضا”
― إبراهيم نصر الله, زيتون الشّوارع

“هل هزمك الخوف أم أخافتك الهزائم؟ أم أن الموت والحياة يتعريان بلا حياء ويتضاجعان على فراشك وأنت بلا حولا ولا قوة تراقبين، وتصرخين بلا صوت؟تقولين هذة كلها أوهام، تسقطينها، تقومين إلى صنبور الماء وفرشاة الأسنان وصباح الخير والقهوة.”
― رضوى عاشور, أطياف