Ali Shamsa

“I lost a great innocence when I understood that I and my mind were not going to be on good terms for the rest of my life. I can’t tell you how tired I am of character-building experiences. But I treasure this part of me; whoever loves me loves me with this in it.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“ثمة شيء أدهشني دائماً، وهو أنني لم أكن يوم من الأيام عبداً للنساء اللواتي أحببتهن، بالعكس، كنت أسيطر على إرادتهن وعلى قلوبهن سيطرة لا سبيل لهن إلى دفعها، دون أن أفعل من أجل ذلك شيئاً .. أيرجع هذا إلى أني لا أحرص على أي شيء حرصاً عميقاً ؟!”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“Wisdom is the last word of a dying civilization, the halo of historical sunsets, fatigue turned into a worldview, the final tolerance before the rise of fresher gods—and barbarism.”
― Emil M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay

“So much have we lost touch with 'real life' that we occasionally feel a kind of disgust for it and so can't bear to be reminded of it. For we have arrived at the point where we look on 'real life' as toil, almost as compulsory service, and all of us privately agree that 'life' as we find it in book is better.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground