Jessica Khoury > Quotes

“And what do you know of love?"
"That it must be a choice."
"Oh, my naive thief. " I pause briefly to meet his gaze. "Love is rarely a choice.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“As the poets say, stories are truth told through lies.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“The things that were once sweet to me are now bitter. The sun is not half so bright. The stars seem dimmer. All this wealth and luxury feels meaningless. All the world is in your shadow, Zahra. I cannot help but see you when I close my eyes.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“You can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose who you become because of it. ~Aladdin”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“There is only one thing more numerous than the stars,” I say, looking up to the heavens. “And that is the darkness that holds them.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“If you're not free to love, your're not free at all.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“Time has a different meaning for me, and these events that seem so monumental in the moment will one day be nothing more than a line in a scroll. These humans are but letters to be inked into history. A hundred years from now, I will be free. I will have forgotten their names and faces, and the struggles they have will not matter. Time has a way of burying things, shifting like the desert and swallowing entire civilizations, erasing them from map and memory. Always, in the end, everything returns to dust.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“That your eyes are like bits of sky seen through the leaves. And that, like the rain washes the mud from the leaves, you... how did he say it? Oh yes. That you wash the darkness from the world.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“I want someone who will look into my eyes and understand everything behind them.
-Pia”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Because happiness itself is a mythical construct, a dream you humans tell yourselves to get through each day. It is the moon, and you, like the sun, pursue it relentlessly, chasing it around and around, getting nowhere.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“The price of every lie is that the truth will always come out.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“No one should live forever," I whisper. "Isn't that how it goes? There must be a balance. No birth without death. No life without tears. What is taken from the world must be given back. No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live. And so it goes.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Nothing is worth betraying someone you love. ~Aladdin”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“You’re a—you’re a—”
Say it, boy. Demon of fire. Monster of smoke. Devil of sand and ash. Servant of Nardukha, Daughter of Ambadya, the Nameless, the Faceless, the Limitless. Slave of the Lamp. Jinni.
“. . . a girl!” he finishes.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“He is the sun, and I am the moon. We must stay apart or the world will be thrown out of balance.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“Even a thief may have honor, and even a jinni may have a heart.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“Cruelty, I understand. But kindness frightens me, for my defenses are weak against it. ~Zahra”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“The universe sings a deep, eternal song, sound in waves, in deep sighs, in whispers, in swirling chords and rising, falling tones. The music of the worlds, weaving in a pattern that is both chaos and order, both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“Maybe reason is neater and more orderly, but nonsense is freeing.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Get control of yourself, Zahra!
My name isn’t Zahra. I am Smoke-on-the-Wind, Curl-of-the-Tiger’s-Tail, Girl-Who-Gives-the-Stars-Away.
He loves you!
He is just a mortal. Just a boy, a moment in time that will soon pass.
His name is Aladdin.
I have known a thousand and one like him. I will know a thousand and one more. He is nothing.
He is everything. ”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“He lifts my hand from the root and presses it to his bare chest, over his heart. My breath stops. I wonder if he can feel the pulse racing in my wrist, because it’s beating just as quickly as his heartbeat.

“Do you know the Ai’oan word for heart?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“It’s py’a.” We’re so close, his whisper is right in my ear, and his breath warms the side of my neck. “You are my heart, Pia”

I lick my lips. When did they get so dry?

His other hand cradles the back of my head, tipping my face upward. “A body can't live without a heart. And I can’t live without you.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“You won't tell?"

"I'll add it to the box under my bed labeled 'The Secret Confession of the Immortal Pia'. Good Lord, girl, don't look so mortified. There's not actually a box.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Love makes you weak. It distracts you from the important things. It can make you lose sight of the objective.
-Uncle Paolo”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“You insist you're a monster because you're afraid of being human.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“He said that seeing and understanding are two different things. Our eyes show us one side of an object, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t five other sides we can’t see. So why thrust your eyes? Why live your whole life thinking that just because you can’t see every side to something, those other sides don’t exist?”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Do not say such things," said the Queen. "We have today and yesterday, and we will seize tomorrow. We will have all the time in the world if we are clever enough to take it.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“She said, 'People are like stars, but it's stories that turn us into constellations. If we don't tell our stories, we burn alone in the dark.”
― Jessica Khoury, Kalahari

“Love is a path lined with roses." I say bitterly. "But it leads to a cliff's edge and all who follow it tumble to their doom. You will not find your happiness there.”
― Jessica Khoury, The Forbidden Wish

“Because you are young and free and one with the jungle. You are mortal, but instead of clinging to the hope of immortality, you embrace each day, one at a time, and never worry about tomorrow.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin