Jouba Nouri > Jouba's Quotes

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours”
― Kinky Friedman

“You have to die a few times before you can really
live.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“My ambition is handicapped by laziness”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!”
― Charles Bukowski

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I've always been an ironic dreamer, unfaithful to my inner promises.
Like a complete outsider, a casual observer of whom I thought I was,
I've always enjoyed watching my daydreams go down in defeat.
I was never convinced of what I believed in.
I filled my hands with sand, called it gold, and opened them up to let it slide through.
Words were my only truth.
When the right words were said, all was done; the rest was the sand that had always been.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

“If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.”
― Erich Fromm, The Art of Being

“But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.”
― Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

“When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level”
― Brian Greene

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”
― Charles T. Munger

“I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
― Charles Bukowski

“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“أسوء تعذيب فى العالم هو الشخص المُصر على الكلام بينما أنت مُثقل بالهموم , ترغب فى أن تبقى صامتاً وأن تصغى لأفكارك.”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“I'm not anti-social. I'm just not social.”
― Woody Allen

“كن صديقي.
كن صديقي.
كم جميل لو بقينا أصدقاء
إن كل امرأة تحتاج أحياناً إلى كف صديق..
وكلام طيب تسمعه..
وإلى خيمة دفء صنعت من كلمات
لا إلى عاصفة من قبلات
فلماذا يا صديقي؟.
لست تهتم بأشيائي الصغيرة
ولماذا... لست تهتم بما يرضي النساء؟..

****
كن صديقي.

كن صديقي.
إنني أحتاج أحياناً لأن أمشي على العشب معك..
وأنا أحتاج أحيانا لأن اقرأ ديواناً من الشعر معك..
وأنا – كامرأة- يسعدني أن أسمعك..
فلماذا –أيها الشرقي- تهتم بشكلي؟..
ولماذا تبصرالكحل بعيني..
ولا تبصر عقلي؟.
إنني أحتاج كالأرض إلى ماء الحوار.
فلماذا لا ترى في معصمي إلا السوار ؟.
ولماذا فيك شيء من بقايا شهريار؟.

*****
كن صديقي.

كن صديقي.
ليس في الأمر انتقاص للرجولة
غير أن الرجل الشرقي لايرضى بدورٍ
غير أدوار البطولة..
فلماذا تخلط الأشياء خلطاً ساذجاً؟.
ولماذا تدعي العشق وما أنت العشيق..
إن كل امرأةٍ في الأرض تحتاج إلى صوت ذكيٍ..
وعميق.
وإلى النوم على صدر بيانو أو كتاب..
فلماذا تهمل البعد الثقافي..
وتعنى بتفاصيل الثياب؟.

*****

كن صديقي.

كن صديقي.
أنا لا أطلب أن تعشقني العشق الكبيرا..
لا ولا أطلب أن تبتاع لي يختاً..
وتهديني قصورا..
لا ولا أطلب أن تمطرني عطراً فرنسياً ..
وتعطيني القمر
هذه الأشياء لا تسعدني ..
فاهتماماتي صغيرة
وهواياتي صغيرة
وطموحي .. هو أن أمشي ساعاتٍ.. وساعاتٍ معكْ.
تحت موسيقى المطر..
وطموحي، هو أن أسمع في الهاتف صوتكْ..
عندما يسكنني الحزن ...
ويبكيني الضجر..

********
كن صديقي.

كن صديقي.
فأنا محتاجة جداً لميناء سلام
وأنا متعبة من قصص العشق، وأخبار الغرام
وأنا متعبة من ذلك العصرالذي
يعتبر المرأة تمثال رخام.
فتكلم حين تلقاني ...
لماذا الرجل الشرقي ينسى،
حين يلقى المرأة، نصف الكلام؟.
ولماذا لا يرى فيها سوى قطعة حلوى..
وزغاليل حمام..
ولماذا يقطف التفاح من أشجارها؟..
ثم ينام..”
― سعاد الصباح

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself”
― William Faulkner