Maneet > Maneet's Quotes

“Once again I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. Her problem was the problem of the world in miniature. India is too vast in its area and too diverse in its races. It is many countries packed in one geographical receptacle. It is just the opposite of what Europe truly is, namely, one country made into many. Thus Europe in its culture and growth has had the advantage of the strength of the many as well as the strength of the one. India, on the contrary, being naturally many, yet adventitiously one, has all along suffered from the looseness of its diversity and the feebleness of its unity. A true unity is like a round globe, it rolls on, carrying its burden easily; but diversity is a many-cornered thing which has to be dragged and pushed with all force. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. In America and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem by almost exterminating the original population. Even in the present age this spirit of extermination is making itself manifest, in the inhospitable shutting out of aliens, by those who themselves were aliens in the lands they now occupy. But India tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history. Her caste system is the outcome of this spirit of toleration. For India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism. India”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”
― Amy Bloom

“I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life’s fabric, to the world’s beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful!”
― Frank O'Hara

“Morning Poem"

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go”
― Frank O'Hara, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

“I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“You were my home
for so long.
Now I realize that humans
cannot
be homes.
If homes can leave,
then they are not
homes.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“The mistake most of us make is that we build our homes in other people in the hope that they will deem us worthy of being welcomed inside. We feel so abandoned and empty when people leave, because we’ve invested so much of ourselves in them.”
― Najwa Zebian, Welcome Home: A Guide to Building a Home for Your Soul

“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.”
― Najwa Zebian

“Whatever you do, do it with purpose. Being focused is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to be proud of. When you know what are you are doing and have a clear vision of where you are going, you will not need to chase opportunities. Opportunities will seek you. Happiness will chase you. And, instead of being a choice, you will be the one choosing.”
― Najwa Zebian, Mind Platter

“If you ever get the chance to treat them the way they treated you, I hope you choose to walk away and do better.”
― Najwa Zebian

“My heart aches in
corners
I did not know
existed.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“I spent more time getting
over you
than I spent
falling in love with you.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“You will tell me that you wish
I would give you another chance.
And I will tell you that I wished
you never walked away
when you walked away.
But you still walked away.
You will tell me that you were not
yourself when you walked away.
And I will tell you that I was not
myself when I thought that
you were the one.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“I am not better than you because of my religion, color, culture, education, status, wealth, etc. I am not, and neither are you, I must accept, and so should you, that there are differences between us that we were born into. Why do we focus on these differences? Put your hand in mine and let us accept that our differences should not come in the way of us uniting for the basic human values that we share: compassion, peacefulness, respect, honesty, innocence, humbleness and sympathy. Does a baby born here smile differently from a baby born anywhere in the world? Do they cry any differently? We may not speak the same language and we may not live the same lifestyle, but a smile I put on my face when I see you puts a smile on your face before you can even think of it. Now, THAT is powerful. I hope that every sense of arrogance or greed in my heart is deviated to a sense of humility, so the wall of ignorance to the real issues in the world can be shattered by the common rights that I share with all of my brothers and sisters in humanity.”
― Najwa Zebian, Mind Platter

“Stop dwelling in the past.
No, you could not have known
better.
No, you would not do things differently
if you went back.
No, they would not have
treated you differently if
you had acted,
looked, or
cared differently.
They are who they are regardless of
who you are.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“You may be a disaster for a day, a month, or a year. Just don't be a disaster forever.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“The moments that you choose to be
silent
when someone's soul is
screaming at you,
begging you to say,
"My heart is with you,"
those moments leave
scars on our souls
that no amount of excuses can
erase.
If you love someone,
you love them.
You don't allow your pride to
stop you from expressing your love
to them.
If you expect them to understand
your love through silence,
don't be surprised when their soul
slips out of your hands in silence.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“When pain knocks on your door, welcome it. Let it in. Sit with it. Have tea with it. Understand it. Then let it leave.”
― Najwa Zebian, Welcome Home: A Guide to Building a Home for Your Soul

“We base our happiness on events that may happen in the future: If this happens, I will be truly happy. What about now? What about all of the things happening in your life now? Are they really not good? Or just not good enough? Reflect, reflect, reflect. Don’t be quick to judge how regretful or amazing your past was, how good or bad your present is, or how great your future will be. Be content with now. Anticipate a better, rather than anticipating a good.”
― Najwa Zebian, Mind Platter

“You stayed a short while,
but
you made me want to write
about love,
not heartbreak,
again.
Thank you.”
― Najwa Zebian, Sparks of Phoenix

“You came to me with
broken wings.
I helped you heal your
wounds
by pouring love into the
broken pieces of
your soul.
You flew away
when your wings were healed.
You left me here,
chained to the ground,
trying to remove the shards
that got stuck in my own wings
as I took them out of yours.

Where did gratefulness
go?
I will not let your deception
make me not want to help more
broken wings out there.
Your lack of gratitude
will not make me
not give.
I do not give just to
be thanked.
But it does not mean that
it does not hurt.”
― Najwa Zebian, The Nectar of Pain

“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.”
― Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

“When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ”
― Diane Ackerman

“So much in a relationship changes when a partner is seriously ill, helpless yet blameless, and indefatigably needy. I felt old. [p. 99]


The animal part of him in pain accepted my caring. But the part of himself watching himself in that pain didn't believe I could ever respect him again. None of this crossed my mind. I couldn't risk knowing it. No one could and continue caregiving. They'd feel so unappreciated and wronged that it would drive them away. [p. 100]”
― Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing

“Do all lovers feel like they're inventing something?”
― Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

“In the solitude, I felt the liberty you speak of. But I also felt your absence.”
― Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

“It takes two to be funny.”
― Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire