Ghada Mohamed

“منذُ يومين
كان جالسًا يحدقُ في الشمسِ
أمامَ البيتِ
ثُمّ قفزَ فجأة
وأمسكَ بالظِلّ
كي لا يسحب يومًا جديدًا
من عمره .”
― عماد أبو صالح, عجوز تؤلمه الضحكات

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“لا وجود لأي امبراطورية تستحق أن تمزق لأجلها دمية طفلة. لا يوجد مثال يستحق أن نضحي في سبيله حتى بقطار ألعاب. أوثمة بلاد أنفع من أخرى ومثل أسمى من سواها؟ ...... أمام الحياة التي امتلكناها بدون أن نعرف كيف، وسنفقدها بدون أن نعرف متى، أمام العشرة آلاف لعبة شطرنج التي هي الحياة، إزاء ضجر التأمل الذي لا طائل من ورائه لما لا يتحقق أبدا... أمام كل هذا ماذا باستطاعة الحكيم أن يفعل سوى أن يطلب العطالة والراحة”
― Fernando Pessoa