“Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.”
― The Shadow of the Wind
― The Shadow of the Wind
Abdelrahman’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Abdelrahman’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Abdelrahman
Lists liked by Abdelrahman





















