Tempest Lew

“Now, memory becomes a vanishing fragrance, the memory is gone, and this is where the pure, calm sunset fades into nothing.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“She had died, gone silently, left the world as she lived in it, without a home, without a field, without a beloved one to hold her close, without a brother to take care of her, and never having children who came out of her own body.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“The fragile bird of life took us along. We clung to its wings so hard that they dissolved in our grip; and so we tried to put those feathers on ourselves. We dressed ourselves in those feathers, and we drank the blood of that bird we had destroyed, and we told ourselves, "We will go on." We kept saying that, even as the bird apart, ripped to pieces in our fingers, and as we had to endure the acrid taste of its blood beneath our tongues. "We will go on," we said. And then we waited expectantly for the bird of life to soar again into the sky, taking us with it. We waited and waited.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“Twenty pairs of shoes but they never know where the shoehorn is; houses filled with microwave ovens and flat-screen televisions, yet they couldn’t tell you which anchor bolt to use for a concrete wall if you threatened them with a box cutter.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove