Suha

“لهذا عليّ أن أعود
إلى أماكن كثيرة آتية
لألتقي بي
وأتفحصني دون توقف.
دون شاهد سوى القمر،
ثم لأصفّر بسعادة
واطئاً أحجاراً وأتربة.
دون مهمة أخرى سوى الحياة.
ودون أسرة سوى الطريق”
― Pablo Neruda

“Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. ”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“You can’t eat beauty, it doesn't feed you...beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion--for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul.”
― Lupita Nyong o

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People