Ebrahim

“هناك من لا يستطيع أن يكون إلّا نفسه, يمارس قناعاته ولو خاصم منْ أجلِها الدّنيا, وهنال من يستطيع أن يكون غير نفسه يمارس طموحاته حتّى لو صادقْ من أجلِها الشيطان, وكلاهُما ممقوت ومرضى عنه فى آنٍ واحد, فالأول ممقوت من الناس ومرضى عنه من الحق, والثانى ممقوت من الحق ومرضى عنه من الناس”
― ثروت الخرباوي

“But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,' said Frodo.
Sam looked at him unhappily. 'It all depends on what you want,' put in Merry. 'You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin--to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours--closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject...

Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire.

The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other... In this moment, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled... A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought...?”
― Roland Barthes