Khloud Khalid > Khloud's Quotes

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys

“If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can't predict what they will do.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“There is no past or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.”
― Janet Frame

“I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.”
― Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World

“And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

“Once upon a time, powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’

And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.”
― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

“Literature is humanity talking to itself.”
― Norman Rush

“تعلمك الحرب أشياء كثيرة.
أولها أن ترهف السمع و تنتبه لتقدر الجهة التي يأتي منها إطلاق النيران، كأنما صار جسمك أذنا كبيرة فيها بوصلة تحدد الجهة المعينة بين الجهات الأربع، أو الخمس، لأن السماء غدت جهة يأتيك منها أيضا الهلاك.”
― رضوى عاشور, الطنطورية

“في الحرب لا يتصرف الناس كما خلقهم ربنا. يجن الخلق و يفلت الميزان. ساعنها لا يكون الشعر وحده او الثوب مشعثاً بل يتشعث القلب”
― رضوى عاشور, الطنطورية

“لا فائدة، نحن ضحايا و مذنبون معاً، ضحايا لهذا الزمن و لهذه الظروف و ضحايا لتربية شديدة المثالية تلقيناها و لأوهام شدية القوة عشناها، و مذنبون لأننا صدقناها و لم نتمكن من الخروج من أسرها، و الآن أعلم علم اليقين أن الوقت قد حان كى اتوقف عن التصديق و عن الاتباع و أن ادرك أن كل هذ الحلم هو محاولة يائسة. و لكنى لا استطيع التوقف عن التصديق و الاتباع دون أن اموت من الملل و الاكتئاب، و من ثم فإن الخيار الحقيقى هو بين الوهم أو الموت، و ذلك قاع المأساة.”
― عزالدين شكري فشير, غرفة العناية المركزة

“شرح لي أبي نظريته في القاهرة التي أسماها "نظرية الجمل". قال إنه يمكنك أن تفعل أي شيء تريده في القاهرة، ولن يوقفك أحد. لا توجد هنا تلك اللائحة الطويلة من التعليمات واللوائح والقوانين المقيدة لسلوك البشر مثلما هو الحال في باريس. الناس في الغرب أصبحوا كأنهم نيترونات أو كواكب صغيرة يدورون في أفلاك لا يمكنهم الفكاك منها. في نيويورك أو واشنطن مثلا لو تركت سيارتك في مكان غير مخصص لك لأخذها البوليس في أقل من نصف ساعة، أو أوقع عليك غرامة باهظة. وربما يتطور الأمر إلى قضية في المحكمة. ولو رفضت الدفع لحكم عليك بالسجن. ويمكن فعلا أن تذهب إلى للسجن بسبب هذا! في القاهرة لو اشتريت جملا وركبته، وأوقفته أمام بيتك لما عارضك أحد. أقصى ما يمكن أن يحدث أن يأتي إليك شرطي المرور ويقول لك بأدب شديد: "من فضلك طلع الجمل قدام شويه علشان الطريق!”
― عزالدين شكري فشير, غرفة العناية المركزة

“كيف انهارت الأمور في مصر إلى هذه الدرجة؟ كيف ضربت الفوضى والإهمال والتسيب وانحدار الكفاءة في كل شيء هكذا وبهذه السرعة؟ من الرقابة على الغذاء إلى فشل الطب وتلوث الهواء والإشعاع في الأغذية وانهيار التعليم من المدرسة إلى الجامعة والبحث العلمي والاستبداد السياسي والتمييز الديني والتعذيب وسيطرة الأمن المركزة على الجامعة وبقية مؤسسات المجتمع والدولة وسيطرة التخلف على عقول الطلبة والنخبة والإرهاب الفكري وتدهور مستوى الثقافة الشعبية منها والرسمية والنخبوية وانتشار الهبل في الصحف والراديو والتليفزيون وإعلاء قيمة المال حتى أصبح المعيار الأول لتحديد الأولويات للفرد والمجتمع والدولة والكسب السريع والانفتاح الاستهلاكي وانهيار دور الدولة في إدارة الشئون العامة من تنظيم المرور إلى تنفيذ أحكام القضاء واستيراد أسوأ ما في الغرب والوقوف ضد أفضل ما فيه وانحطاط المهنية في سائر المهن من السباكة إلى التدريس بالجامعة واختفاء الجمال من تصميم البيوت والمباني والشوارع والحدائق إلى مظهر الرجال والنساء والأطفال والصخب والتفاهة والميلودرامية وطفولة البالغين وإدمان النكد والشقاء والوقوف بالعرض في كل شيء.كيف؟”
― عزالدين شكري فشير, غرفة العناية المركزة

“احيانا افكر اننا لو اردنا ان ننظم انهارا لمجتمع ووضعنا كل قدراتنا في هذا الامر لما نجحنا في احداث انهيار مماثل لما جري في مصر بهذه السرعة”
― عزالدين شكري فشير, غرفة العناية المركزة

“I like good strong words that mean something…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated...”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Greed and selfishness do seem to be central motivators of mankind.”
― Raymond Khoury, The Sanctuary

“صعب عليه أن ينظر لهذه الكتب ويقرّر التخلص منها، كأنه يلقي بأجزاء من نفسه. هذه هي الكتب التي ساهمت في تشكيله، في جعله من هو.”
― عزالدين شكري فشير, عناق عند جسر بروكلين

“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.”
― Derek Walcott

“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.”
― Philip José Farmer

“Books are the carriers of civilization...They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman

“Humans, as a rule, don't like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead. But the definition of mad, on Earth, seems to be very unclear and inconsistent. What is perfectly sane in one era turns out to be insane in another. The earliest humans walked around naked with no problem. Certain humans, in humid rainforests mainly, still do so. So, we must conclude that madness is sometimes a question of time, and sometimes of postcode.

Basically, the key rule is, if you want to appear sane on Earth you have to be in the right place, wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and only stepping on the right kind of grass.”
― Matt Haig, The Humans

“That we have great men in our time and recent times is not because of our educational system, but rather in spite of it. They are the ones the teachers couldn't spoil.”
― Dagobert D. Runes, A Dictionary of Thought

“Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.”
― Anthony Burgess

“When multiple explanations exist, the simplest is usually correct.”
― Dan Brown, Deception Point

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, The Collected Writings

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
― Albert Einstein