Noha Eldakroury > Noha's Quotes

“That’s how we both got committed to this enormous delusion—because that’s what it is, an enormous, obscene delusion—this idea that people have to resign from real life and ‘settle down’ when they have families.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“Wasn’t it true, then, that everything in his life from that point on had been a succession of things he hadn’t really wanted to do? Taking a hopelessly dull job to prove he could be as responsible as any other family man, moving to an overpriced, genteel apartment to prove his mature belief in the fundamentals of orderliness and good health, having another child to prove that the first one hadn’t been a mistake, buying a house in the country because that was the next logical step and he had to prove himself capable of taking it. Proving, proving; and for no other reason than that he was married to a woman who had somehow managed to put him forever on the defensive, who loved him when he was nice, who lived according to what she happened to feel like doing and who might at any time—this was the hell of it—who might at any time of day or night just happen to feel like leaving him.

It was as ludicrous and as simple as that.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don't like. Great. This is the way ninety-eight-point-nine per cent of the people work things out, so believe me, buddy, you've got nothing to apologize for.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“Wasn’t it true, then, that everything in his life from that point on had been a succession of things he hadn’t really wanted to do?”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occured to them to do anything less then perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I Belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I'd been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in the meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among the swans.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“What a subtle, treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way! Because once you've started it was terribly difficult to stop; soon you were saying "I'm sorry, of course you're right", and "Whatever you think is best", and "you're the most wonderful and valuable thing int he world", and the next thing you knew all honesty, all truth, was as far away and glimmering, as hopelessly unattainable as the world of the golden people.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“لا تحاول أن تقاوم التغييرات التي تعترض سبيلك ، بل دع الحياة تعيش فيك. ولا تقلق إذا قلبت حياتك رأساً على عقب. فكيف يمكنك أن تعرف أن الجانب الذي اعتدت عليه أفضل من الجانب الذي سيأتي؟”
― إليف شافاق, The Forty Rules of Love