Alaa Abotaleb > Alaa's Quotes

“I didn't get to grow up and pull away from her and bitch about her with my friends and confront her about the things I'd wished she'd done differently and then get older and understand that she had done the best she could and realize that what she had done was pretty damn good and take her fully back into my arms again. Her death had obliterated that. It had obliterated me. It had cut me short at the very heigh of my youthful arrogance. It had forced me to instantly grow up and forgive her every motherly fault at the same time that it kept me forever a child, my life both ended and begun in that premature place where we'd left off. She was my mother, but I was motherless. I was trapped by her, but utterly alone. She would always be the empty bowl that no one could full. I'd have to fill it myself again and again and again.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
― Rumi

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
― Rumi

“Knock, And He'll open the door
Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”
― Jalal Ad-Din Rumi

“ و كلما حاول أن يغالب ما في قلبه ازداد ما في قلبه اتقاداً”
― رضوى عاشور, ثلاثية غرناطة

“When I was a girl I would look out my bedroom window at the caterpillars; I envied them so much. No matter what they were before, no matter what happened to them, they could just hide away and turn into these beautiful creatures that could fly away completely untouched.”
― Patch Adams

“تلقيت خطاب من محمود يخبرني فيه ان خطبتك قد أعلنت ،و بالأمس كتبت لك خطاب مجنون ثم مزقته .. أتصدقين أنني مازلت أحبك ، و اليوم أشعر أنني في حالة أفضل تمكنني من التفكير السليم و لذلك أكتب إليك لأهنئك؛ فأنا سعيد من أجلك يا عزيزتي .. سعيد لأنك أستطعت أخيراً أن تدفعي الباب و أن تنطلقي و لابد أنك تمضين الآن في الطريق المفتوح و اللمعة في عينيك و الإشراقة في وجهك .. لا تتألمي من أجلي و لا تلومي نفسك فأنت لم تشجعيني ، و لكن ماذا أفعل؟ .. ماذا أفعل في الفكرة المجنونة التي سيطرت علي ، فكرة أنك لي و أنا لك مهما طال الزمن .
إن الخطأ الوحيد الذي ارتكبتيه هو أنك جعلتيني أراك ، و أنك جميلة، و أنك رقيقة و أنك أنت.”
― لطيفة الزيات

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”
― Rumi

“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
― Rumi

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life.”
― Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits

“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
― Stephen Fry

“You do not just wake up and become the butterfly"
-Growth is a process.”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“you're everywhere
except right here
and it hurts”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional i’d crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. i’m just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me. and all i dream is to soften.”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“If I'm not the love of your life
I'll be the greatest loss instead”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“my twenties are the warm-up for what i’m really about to do wait till you see me in my thirties now that will be a proper introduction to the nasty. wild. woman in me.”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“there are mountains growing
beneath our feet
that cannot be contained
all we've endured
has prepared us for this
bring your hammer and fists
we have a glass ceiling to shatter”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“Sometimes our walls exist just to see who has the strength to knock
them down.”
― Darnell Lamont Walker, Creep

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
― Rumi

“I know you're tired but come, this is the way.”
― Jalalu'l-din Rumi

“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“Take someone who doesn't keep score,
who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,
who has not the slightest interest even
in his own personality: he's free.”
― Rumi Jalalu'l-Din

“The cure for pain is in the pain.”
― Rumi

“Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été.”
― Albert Camus

“The bridge will only take you halfway there, to those mysterious lands you long to see. Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fair, and moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share the twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there. The last few steps you have to take alone.”
― Shel Silverstein