Doris

“Some things we never know we need until we find them. And now, when I looked back on my life, it seemed empty and idle, if only because she’d not been in it.

All my life, I’d shied away from human company, never sharing my thoughts with a soul. How pointless this seemed now, and how absurd!

I’d thought that it was life itself that had ground me down – that my sadness stemmed from spiritual malaise. After spending two hours with a book, and finding it more pleasurable than two years of real life, I’d remember again that life had no meaning, and sink back into despair.”
― Sabahattin Ali, Kürk Mantolu Madonna

“In place of the term “realness” I have sometimes used the word “congruence.” By this I mean that when my experiencing of this moment is present in my awareness and when what is present in my awareness is present in my communication, then each of these three levels matches or is congruent. At such moments I am integrated or whole, I am completely in one piece. Most of the time, of course, I, like everyone else, exhibit some degree of incongruence. I have learned, however, that realness, or genuineness, or congruence—whatever term you wish to give it—is a fundamental basis for the best of communication.”
― Carl R. Rogers, A Way Of Being

“Still, our conversations remained superficial. But this no longer puzzled me. For wasn’t there sufficient pleasure to be had in silent patience — in viewing others’ vices with compassion and enjoying their vulgarities? When we walked side by side, did I not feel his humanity most profoundly? Only now did I begin to understand why it was not always through words that people sought each other out and came to understand each other, and why some poets went to such lengths to seek out companions who could, like them, contemplate the beauties of nature in silence.”
― Sabahattin Ali, Madonna in a Fur Coat

“The essence of life is in solitude – wouldn’t you agree? All unions are built on falsehood. People can only get to know each other up to a point and then they make up the rest, until one day, seeing their mistake, they turn their backs on sadness and run away. Would this ever happen, if they stopped believing in their dreams and made do with what was possible? If everyone accepted what was natural, then no one would suffer disappointment, no one would curse fate.”
― Sabahattin Ali, Madonna in a Fur Coat