Imen Benyoub > Imen 's Quotes

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I searched for my own heart
and long after I had lost my way
in the days trailing past with their foliage
in the aloof sky blue with distance
I thought I'd find my heart
where I'd kept your eyes two brown butterflies
and I saw the swallows swoop
and shadows starlings”
― Ingrid Jonker

“Happiness is the change that comes over me
when I describe the world
It comes over the world
Happiness is the change that comes over me
when I'm afraid
It comes over the world
For instance I can be afraid of and for the world
afraid because the world consists among other things
of me so swiftly dying”
― Inger Christensen, it

“I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.”
― Sara Teasdale, Love Songs

“وفي كل مرة يسألك أحدهم "ماذا يعني أن تكون كاتباً؟" ستحزن، تسكت، وتتهرب، لأنه- وبكل بساطة - لا تعرف ماذا يعني أن تكون ملعوناً... بحب الآخرين وكرههم في الوقت ذاته.”
― باسكال عساف

“Have I ever really loved anyone at all,
or was it a lightning flash
which made me the shadow of my former self?”
― Vladimir Holan

“In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
― Franz Kafka

“لن أرتد حتى أزرع في الأرض جنتي أو أقتلع من السماء جنة أو أموت أو نموت معاً”
― Ghassan Kanafani

“Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.”
― Edmond De Goncourt

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
― Cesare Pavese

“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel: The Restored Edition

“I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“When your eyes meet my solitude
Silence ripens, a fruit,
And sleep turns into storm.
Forbidden doors fling open
And water learns to suffer.”
― Joumana Haddad

“Tu seras aimé le jour où tu pourras montrer tes faiblesses sans que l'autre s'en serve pour augmenter sa force.”
― Cesare Pavese

“لا تعشقي فلسطينياً فإنه قد يموت بأي لحظة , رصاص بلاده كثير وطائش جداً, والسجن لديه مثل زيارة قريب ...عادية جداً ومكررة .”
― يامن النوباني, ذاكرة اللوز

“In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.”
― Mark Strand, New Selected Poems

“Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.”
― Mark Strand, Selected Poems of Mark Strand

“Morning’s nowhere in sight
a night walks
through dark streets of my thoughts
with heavy legs
dragging with it like a rag doll all my regrets
could have
should have
would have
blink in the dark
like cheap neon lights
irking weary night birds outside

morning’s nowhere in sight
to wash away with its light
the carcasses a night left behind
of regrets scattered all over dark alleys of my mind”
― Silva Zanoyan Merjanian, Uncoil a Night

“but on this night
the universe is crawling
on skin soft with expectation
and I have untied silk rhymes
lifting the bluebird’s cleavage
you might as well have caged it
between your colored doubts”
― Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

“أنتِ جميلة كوطن محرر
وأنا متعب كوطن محتل
أنتِ حزينة كمخذول يقاوم
وأنا مستنهض كحرب وشيكة
أنتِ مشتهاة كتوقف الغارة
وأنا مخلوع القلب كالباحث بين الأنقاض
أنتِ جسورة كطيار يتدرب
وأنا فخور كجدته
أنتِ ملهوفة كوالد المريض
وأنا هادىء كممرضة
أنتِ حنونة كالرذاذ
وأنا أحتاجك لأنمو
كلانا جامح كالانتقام
كلانا وديع كالعفو
أنت قوية كأعمدة المحكمة
وأنا دهش كمغبون
وكلما التقينا
تحدثنا بلا توقف، كمحامييْن
عن العالم”
― مريد البرغوثي, طال الشتات

“Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
You’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feathers a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours