Toom > Toom's Quotes

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
― Dave Eggers

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“ذهب سعد وراح نعيم يتأمل ذلك الأمر العجيب بإغلاق الحمامات. أن يقاتلك عدوك مفهوم، ولكن ما الحكمة في إغلاق حمام أو إجبار الأهالي على التنصر؟ القشتاليون قوم غريبون مختالو العقول على ما يبدو، ولكن ما السبب في اختلال عقولهم؟ ألم تلدهم امهاتهم أطفال أصحاء عاديين مثل باقي الخلق؟ كيف تفسد عقولهم فيأتون بهذه الأفعال الغريبة؟ فكر نعيم في ذلك ولم يجد إجابة إجابة شافية. لعله البرد القارس في الشمال يجمد جزءا من رؤوسهم فلا يسري الدم فيه فيموت أو يفسد، أو ربما هو لحم الخنزير الذي يصرفون في أكله فيصيبهم بالخبل؟”
― رضوى عاشور, ثلاثية غرناطة

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”

“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Where did feelings go when they disappeared? Did they leave a chemical trace somewhere in our minds, so that if we could look inside ourselves we would see via the patterns of neurons some of the important things that had happened to us in our lifetimes?”
― Evelyn Lau, Inside Out: Reflections on a life so far

“You know, it’s really very peculiar. To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn’t know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn’t even know how to be dead.”
― Milan Kundera, Immortality