Walaa El-Bana

“You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose.”
― Kristen Perrin, How to Solve Your Own Murder

“I don’t know when it started.
I don’t know why it started.
I don’t know anything about anything except for the screaming.
My mother screaming when she realized she could no longer touch me. My father screaming when he realized what I’d done to my mother. My parents screaming when they’d lock me in my room and tell me I should be grateful. For their food. For their humane treatment of this thing that could not possibly be their child. For the yardstick they used to measure the distance I needed to keep away.
I ruined their lives, is what they said to me.
I stole their happiness. Destroyed my mother’s hope for ever having children again.
Couldn’t I see what I’d done, is what they’d ask me. Couldn’t I see that I’d ruined everything.
I tried so hard to fix what I’d ruined. I tried every single day to be what they wanted. I tried all the time to be better but I never really knew how.
I only know now that the scientists are wrong.
The world is flat.
I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I’ve been trying to hold on for 17 years. I’ve been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.
When no one wants to risk touching you”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“- "You know, I had a sibling, a twin as a matter of fact."

- "He was born bigger, happier, better-looking, earned better grades too, got a better job, and he'd probably say, a prettier wife."

** I wait for the lesson, the but - when he stays quiet, I say, "But?"

- "No buts, he was all those things. Better all around than me."

- "But my wife loved me, not him. Besides, that stuff was important only to him. The way I figure it, I had to find my own joy - and I did. Took me thirty years to figure that out. "

- "All those 'better - thans' don't matter if you find the one thing that makes you happy”
― Caroline Brooks DuBois, Ode to a Nobody

“He’s lying,” said Professor Playfair. “He’s rambling, Margaret, the boy’s gone mad—”

"But madness is incoherent,” Professor Craft said. “And lies are self‑serving.” This story - it benefits no one, certainly not these two,” she said, pointing at Robin and Victoire, “and it is coherent.”
― R. F. Kuang