Ahlam

“My library was -- all libraries are -- a place of ultimate refuge, a wild and sacred space where meanings are manageable precisely because they aren't binding; and where illusion is comfortingly real.”
― André Brink

“Like some wondrous birds out of fairy tales, books sang their songs to me and spoke to me as though communing with one languishing in prison; they sang of the variety and richness of life, of man’s audacity in his strivings towards goodness and beauty.”
― Maxim Gorky

“I was stuck in another small town, trapped in another universe populated by the kind of people who’d only ever seen faces like mine on their evening news, and I hated it.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“So close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my sleep.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets