Reema > Reema's Quotes

“Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities

“في مدن العزلة
أختار هواءً مرئيّاً كي يصحبَني
أبتكر له ظلاً
وأدرّب قدميه على موسيقى الخطواتْ
نتحدث كغريبين عن الطقس المعتم
ونفكر في فصل لا يأتي
.. أو في عاصمةٍ للحلم
تلاحقنا أشباح الوقت
وفي أيديها ساعات موقوتةْ
نتجاهلها
ونسير على أرصفة اللحظة
.. حذرَين
لكي لا نخطئ
وندوس على قدم غريب يتوسطنا
كي لا نخطئ ..
وندوس على قدم الموتْ !”
― محمد الضبع, صياد الظل

“إذا رأيت رجلًا ليس في قلبه امرأة فتأكّد أن ما تراه ليس رجلًا، إنه جثّة تريد قبرًا.”
― عبد الرحمن منيف

“فبعضي لديّ وبعضي لديك .. وبعضي مُشتاق لبعضي .. فهلّا أتيت ؟”
― محمود درويش

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
― Carl Sagan

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
― Bill Watterson

“You know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different.”
― Bill Watterson

“If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently. ”
― Bill Watterson

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“There is a girl who still writes you; she doesn’t know how not to.”
― Sarah Kay

“When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.”
― Maya Angelou

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“What I Will
by Suheir Hammad


I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin break for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.”
― Suheir Hammad

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”
― Maya Angelou

“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
― Maya Angelou

“SEGISMUNDO: ¡Ay mísero de mí, y ay infelice!
Apurar, cielos, pretendo,
ya que me tratáis así,
qué delito cometí
contra vosotros naciendo.
Aunque si nací, ya entiendo
qué delito he cometido;
bastante causa ha tenido
vuestra justicia y rigor,
pues el delito mayor
del hombre es haber nacido.
Sólo quisiera saber
para apurar mis desvelos
-dejando a una parte, cielos,
el delito del nacer-,
¿qué más os pude ofender,
para castigarme más?
¿No nacieron los demás?
Pues si los demás nacieron,
¿qué privilegios tuvieron
que no yo gocé jamás?
Nace el ave, y con las galas
que le dan belleza suma,
apenas es flor de pluma,
o ramillete con alas,
cuando las etéreas salas
corta con velocidad,
negándose a la piedad
del nido que dejan en calma;
¿y teniendo yo más alma,
tengo menos libertad?
Nace el bruto, y con la piel
que dibujan manchas bellas,
apenas signo es de estrellas
-gracias al docto pincel-,
cuando, atrevido y cruel,
la humana necesidad
le enseña a tener crueldad,
monstruo de su laberinto;
¿y yo, con mejor instinto,
tengo menos libertad?
Nace el pez, que no respira,
aborto de ovas y lamas,
y apenas bajel de escamas
sobre las ondas se mira,
cuando a todas partes gira,
midiendo la inmensidad
de tanta capacidad
como le da el centro frío;
¿y yo, con más albedrío,
tengo menos libertad?
Nace el arroyo, culebra
que entre flores se desata,
y apenas sierpe de plata,
entre las flores se quiebra,
cuando músico celebra
de las flores la piedad
que le dan la majestad
del campo abierto a su huída;
¿y teniendo yo más vida,
tengo menos libertad?
En llegando a esta pasión,
un volcán, un Etna hecho,
quisiera sacar del pecho
pedazos del corazón.
¿Qué ley, justicia o razón
negar a los hombres sabe
privilegios tan süave
excepción tan principal,
que Dios le ha dado a un cristal,
a un pez, a un bruto y a un ave?

”
― Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño

“I'm lucky I'm a comedian, 'cause otherwise my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.”
― Kyle Kinane

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
― Maya Angelou

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“Unlike literary characters, our future is mostly shaped by small, trivial choices - seemingly insignificant, but deceptively fateful.”
― Guillermo Erades

“If I'm walking on thin ice, I might as well dance my way across.”
― Mercedes Lackey

“دواؤك فيك وما تُبصر وداؤك منك وما تَشعر
وَ تزعم أنك جرمٌ صغير،،وفيك انطوى العالمُ الأكبرُ”
― علي بن أبي طالب

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

“You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.”
― Joan Didion

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
― Joan Didion

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”
― Joan Didion

“Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“What happened is the least of it. It’s a novel, and once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matters are the possibilities and ideas that the novel’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with, a plot that we recall far more vividly than real events and to which we pay far more attention.”
― Javier Marías, Los enamoramientos