Sidra

“رات یوں دل میں تری کھوئی ہوئی یاد آئی
جیسے ویرانے میں چپکے ے بہار آجائے
جیسے صحراؤں میں ہولے سے چلے بادِ نسیم
جیسے بیمار کو بے وجہ قرار آجائے”
― Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Nuskha ha-e Wafa / نسخہ ہائے وفا

“For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other. Though it is irregular, it is less boring this way, and besides, neither of them loses anything through my infidelity.”
― Anton Chekhov

“I write because I have nothing else to do in the world: I was left over and there is no place for me in the world of men. I write because I'm desperate and I'm tired, I can no longer bear the routine of being me and if not for the always novelty that is writing, I would die symbolically every day. But I am prepared to slip out discreetly through the back exit. I've experienced almost everything, including passion and its despair. And now I'd only like to have what I would have been and never was.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star