Gehad Hasanin

“The kind of submission or resignation that he showed, was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“For my heart was softened by my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like on who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings had lasted many years.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.”
― Jean Genet

“The day happened to be Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild flowers had been forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed there, came like a check upon my peace.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations