Samia Sayadi

“All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used—to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation of the Word.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“لا أنت أنت
ولا الديار ديار”
― أبو تمام

“Adults do not talk to us—they give us directions. They issue orders without providing information.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“الجهل غشاء سميك يغشى العقل، والعلم نار متأججة، تلامس ذلك الغشاء فتحرقه رويدًا رويدًا ، فلا يزال العقل يتألم لحرارتها مادام العشاء بينه وبينها، حتى إذا أتت عليه انكشف الغطاء فرأى النور نورًا ورأى الألم لذة وسرورًا”
― مصطفى لطفي المنفلوطي, النظرات