Eman Elkfrawy > Eman's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Your gift for thinking interferes with you: without it, of course, you’d be happy.”
― Gaito Gazdanov, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf

“When I thought of myself, of the feelings I had, of the things I thought I understood so well, I imagined myself somehow abstractly, because that other visual recollection was painful and unpleasant for me. No sooner would I call to mind my physical appearance than the finest, most lyrical, wonderful visions would vanish in an instant - so monstrous was its disparity with the intangible, glittering world that existed in my imagination. It seemed to me that there could be no greater contrast than that between my inner life and my outward appearance; sometimes I even imagined that I was trapped in someone else's strange, almost hateful body.”
― Gaito Gazdanov, Het fantoom van Alexander Wolf

“أنتِ جميلة كوطن محرر
وأنا متعب كوطن محتل
أنتِ حزينة كمخذول يقاوم
وأنا مستنهض كحرب وشيكة
أنتِ مشتهاة كتوقف الغارة
وأنا مخلوع القلب كالباحث بين الأنقاض
أنتِ جسورة كطيار يتدرب
وأنا فخور كجدته
أنتِ ملهوفة كوالد المريض
وأنا هادىء كممرضة
أنتِ حنونة كالرذاذ
وأنا أحتاجك لأنمو
كلانا جامح كالانتقام
كلانا وديع كالعفو
أنت قوية كأعمدة المحكمة
وأنا دهش كمغبون
وكلما التقينا
تحدثنا بلا توقف، كمحامييْن
عن العالم”
― مريد البرغوثي, طال الشتات

“only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“لا يعرفُ
أولئك الذين لا يعيشون وحدهم
كيف يكون الصمتُ
مرعبًا
كيف يكلم شخص نفسه
كيف يعدو إلى المرايا
جائعا إلى روحٍ
لا يعرفون.”
― Orhan Veli Kanık, أنا،ِ أورهان والي

“لولا الكُتب ، لكنت قد مِت قبل مدة طويلة”
― Amélie Nothomb, Mercure

“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else's oppression, we'll find our opportunities to make real change.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared.
And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.”
― Stephen Fry, Mythos - The Greek Myths Retold

“She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are.”
― Octavia Butler, Kindred

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“We are guardians, but also a bunch of miserable wretches that are constantly fighting against threats and madness.”
― Cuttlefish That Loves Diving, Lord of the Mysteries