Sahba

“Twain had already traveled himself to the Middle East in 1867, the experience of which he details in The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim’s Progress (1869), and from the 1870s was much captivated by a different Persian poet, cOmar Khayyam, whose Rubáiyát Twain described as “the only poem I have ever carried about with me.”
― Franklin D. Lewis, Rumi - Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi

“If he who enters on the spiritual path is not wholly consumed by the fire of love, how can he withstand the sadness that will overwhelm him? So long as you do not consume yourself entirely, how can you hope to be free from sorrow?”
― عطار نیشابوری, The Conference of the Birds

“eternally revolving wheel of avidity and suffering;”
― Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

“Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red