Mirza Waheed > Quotes

“There were people dying everywhere getting massacred in every town and village, there were people being picked up and thrown into dark jails in unknown parts, there were dungeons in the city where hundreds of young men were kept in heavy chains and from where many never emerged alive, there were thousands who had disappeared leaving behind women with photographs and perennial waiting, there were multitudes of dead bodies on the roads, in hospital beds, in fresh martyrs' graveyards and scattered casually on the snow of mindless borders.”
― Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator

“The dusk here does not arrive on the shoulders of golden sunsets any more, but on the heels of long, encroaching shadows of untraceable trees in the distance, gloomy parallel patterns that cascade over the undulating landscape of unevenly dispersed corpses and other things.”
― Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator

“There are a thousand quiet heartbreaks, amid the loud ones that we hear about. She sometimes thinks. Some carry on quietly, over a lifetime.”
― Mirza Waheed, The Book of Gold Leaves

“You know, Urdu has perhaps the finest word for autobiography. Two words, as a matter of fact. Savanah-e-Umri - the occurrences or accidents of one’s life, literally. I like it over everything else. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t that what really happens to us all, occurrences, accident?”
― Mirza Waheed, Tell Her Everything

“What did I know of the ways of the world? There was a full-scale armed movement under way somewhere, everywhere, and things like this must be happening everywhere. There were people dying everywhere, getting massacred in every town and village, there were people being picked up and thrown into dark jails in unknown parts, there were dungeons in the city where hundreds of young men were kept in heavy chains and from where many never emerged alive, there were thousands who had disappeared, leaving behind women with photographs and perennial waiting, there were multitudes of dead bodies on the roads, in hospital beds, in fresh martyrs’ graveyards and scattered casually on the snow of mindless borders. So what was a little village exodus in comparison to all that?”
― Mirza Waheed

“My wise mother also used to say that no upbringing is worse than being brought up on a daily diet of prejudice. It darkens the soul permanently.”
― Mirza Waheed, Tell Her Everything

“It is not by confining one’s neighbour that one is convinced of one’s own sanity.”
― Mirza Waheed, Tell Her Everything

“Sometimes I think there are only two kinds of people in the world, Dad: those who read and those who don't. I don't know about other people, but I sort of found myself in books. Bit by bit, shade by shade, underlined sentence by underlined sentence, dog-ear by dog-ear, I began to see myself. Independently of everything and, at the same time, in relation to everything. I hope that makes sense. Yeah!”
― Mirza Waheed, Tell Her Everything