Sima B. Moussavian > Quotes

“Does anyone ever recognize themselves when they look back? When they see who they used to be at some point in their life, or do the things that you remember always feel like something unknown, strange? Does the caterpillar know it will become a butterfly? Do maggots suspect that at some stage they'll grow wings and once they are flying, would they recognize themselves when looking at a maggot in the trash?”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“Miles of now, right before our eyes. The present is an ocean: deep and wide. So unlimited in its extent that you can hardly understand it. Without a goal, you drift upon it and desperately wonder how far it stretches, the present, before it will be past. How far away from it does the future start and how much of it can we ever grasp?”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“Lies with their face on, that’s what promises are. But they can wear as much concealer as they like: it won’t last them through the rain.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, As the moon began to rust

“Sometimes it's hard to tell what derails a train and with life, it is the same.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, As the moon began to rust

“How do survivors feel? Relieved and grateful, perhaps. As excited about their saved life as if it were a gift that the rustling fingers feverishly unwrap from its packaging on Christmas morning and whatever is underneath: you are happy. This is how it should be when you have survived the worst. Far from the crippling horror we were feeling.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“No matter what you have heard: the line between life and death is not definite. Not like a wall, thick and hard to break, but constantly moving and volatile. It isn’t actually a line: not visible to the eye, but as hard to define as the water passage where the tide meets a river current. Standing at the shore, can anyone determine where the river ends and the sea begins and standing in life, can anyone determine when exactly they start to die?”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“Maybe that’s what’s immanent to humanity: they strive to know and when they do they still make nothing of it. They come to know and know, but refuse to learn and have to make the same mistakes all over again. Can you really blame them? They are only human, after all, and the world must end twice before they learn a lesson.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“Firsts, no matter if they are pieces of clothing, or people you love, have a way of forever staying your favourites.”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“His days were light beer: lacking potency and barely intoxicating. Hardly worth investing in and perhaps that was why he barely ever spent anything on them. He was a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea. Something useless and long forgotten about, only to treasure hunters still of worth. Maybe that was what Helen was: a treasure hunter and therefore convinced that she had use for him.
~ As the moon began to rust”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“Fate isn't good with people and the other way around, it is the same. For us, it is expressing itself in a misleading way, speaking in a different language. From its point of view, however, what we would call a stroke of fate is not really that, but might just as well be a preparation for a gift it plans to hand to us, at some point in the future.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“A normal human life consists of 500 million breaths for three billion heartbeats. That sounds a lot, but it’s not enough.
You are searching: for a moment that feels better than the last. For a spark that lights a fire in your heart. For things that make you want to keep breathing: those your heart will want to keep beating for. For as long as you are living you are looking for them. Constantly and continuously, regardless of what you find. And here there’s us who we have become eternal. We will have to keep searching for the unbearable rest of eternity: aim- und pointlessly, since everything there is to find is, at some stage, found.
You get tired. So tired of searching, so tired of life. There is nothing in the world that a heart wants to keep beating for forever: no single spark that can outlast eternity and no moment that can feel good enough to make up for the countless ones which will forever be in front of us.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“My hands would touch the weathered rock behind me: rugged but smooth on the edges it would feel and I would be wondering how long it would be until the elements would succeed in grinding it down, in wearing it off so the sea would finally get to take it away. Millions of years, I’d be thinking, with my fingers in the brittle cracks that the continuously freezing and melting water had left on its surface and thinking this, I would have to remind myself that I would still be there to see it. I would still be there, once everything around me would be gone. There, in a dead and invariable wasteland and these would be the moments when it would hit me like rockfall: the futility of eternity”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“People are noise: the sort of it that disturbs your thinking. It’s only causing problems and the more of them you gather, the more problematic life gets. Their noise was the very reason why Tom was trying to avoid them and used to keep the doors shut when he heard them outside.
~ As the moon began to rust”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“Big discoveries call for even bigger responsibility, since they come with the biggest hazards, if they get into the wrong hands. As soon as David is going to realise it, responsibility will be demanded of him as well, because, depending on whose hands get hold of it, a message in a bottle from the past that knows about the future is, like atomic energy, capable of wiping out the world.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“I was too young to imagine what truth really meant and too old to believe that one day it would always win. Truths are no shining key to help you open the doors to better places. They are a burden: a curse that lies upon you until you impose it on someone else.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“Real answers are rare.
The search for them is as tiring as for gemstones on a river's gravel bed. From the surface, you might think you can see them: that you can assess their location, but the water, as clear as it might be, distorts your perception. As purposefully as you might dive down for them, you won't find them, either way, where you first assumed they’d be.
Are they ever worth it? Real answers worth the risk to drown? Or would you be better off living with what you can see from the surface: your distorted perception of their actual shape?”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“Second after second every person withstands 17.000 kilograms of air, without even noticing, yet most cannot endure the slightest blow to their head, the tiniest kick into their stomach, the merest pressure on their mind, without considering it a threat to their life.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“The ghosts of what we don’t dare to recall are the most dangerous. They sneak up on us, unnoticed. They follow our every step. They stalk us and won´t let go until they will have killed our spirit.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, The Things That Haunt Us: A suspenseful mystery novel based on real events

“The past year had shrunk the world. In the hot wash and to be honest, washing it had been a bad idea all along. It should have gotten trashed, instead, given the dirt it had accumulated.
~ As the moon began to rust”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“At some point, every secret was only knowledge, the consequences of which someone was afraid of.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“he person you think you are is only ever a reaction to your deepest trauma. Identity is a layered pile of lies and crutches that you built to protect yourself.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, The Things That Haunt Us: A suspenseful mystery novel based on real events

“It is fragile, the human body. Only so little it can withstand. Maybe the reason for it is that the air is heavy enough on it. Second after second, 17.000 kilograms of it weigh on each of us: as much as four grown elephants. The internal pressure of our cells ensures that the bare air on our bodies won’t crush us: that our tissue won’t turn blue, won’t swell up, won’t burst or bleed out, regardless of the weight it has to carry. Everything on top of this, might just be too much. We take 17.000 kilograms of air, without even noticing, but cannot withstand the slightest blow to our heads, the tiniest kick to our stomachs, the merest pressure on our minds, without jeopardising our lives.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, Tomorrow death died out: What if the future were past?

“For Tom, she was a bit like the dishes at the food joint next door: huge plates full of flavour and tasting them, you would start hungering for more, but too much of them would affect your stomach. It can't really cope if you get them more often than once a month.
~ As the moon began to rust”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“Five minutes sound like nothing, but a lot can happen in only five. It doesn't take much longer to father a child and if you do it right, in five you can even die.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, As the moon began to rust

“For Tom she was a bit like the dishes from the food joint next door. A huge plate full of flavor, and tasting it, you'd hunger for more. But too much of it affects your stomach. You cannot really have it more often than once a month, because even though you actually love every bite of it, you can't digest it very well.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, As the moon began to rust

“That’s the biggest problem with the truth: once it has escaped you, it runs away and starts having a life of its own.
~ As the moon began to rust”
― Sima B. Moussavian

“Deceit is a hill, the snowy surface of which you keep on soaking in cold water, so it will freeze over, and as you focus solely on doing it, you fail to notice how slippery it gets until you end up sliding down yourself.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, The way they leave: A crime novella about the delusions you choose to believe in

“When people are gone, they cannot pretend anymore. They cannot try to adjust to the expectations that they think others have on them, and they cannot prevent anyone from finding their darkest secrets. As they are down there, naked in the morgue, who they were is up here, just as exposed and waiting for a post-mortem.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, The way they leave: A crime novella about the delusions you choose to believe in

“Love is the glass of water that is put in front of you at wild parties: Getting drunk, you reach for it, hoping it would do you good. But then you abuse it as an ashtray at 3 in the morning and the next time you drink from it, it tastes toxic and makes you want to puke.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, As the moon began to rust

“Have to and need to take all meaning away.”
― Sima B. Moussavian, The Things That Haunt Us: A suspenseful mystery novel based on real events