Niloofar Masoomi

“Some places, such as Paris, have a magic best experienced for brief periods so the romantic feeling doesn’t become tainted by a day to day reality. But Mykonos was different in that respect. Mykonos made you long for the restful, happy day to day reality of life on the Greek island, and it was the brief visits that tortured the soul. Paris was a romantic respite from life, Mykonos was life itself, and living. I understood why Susan had made a home for herself on Mykonos.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“You rarely saw the celebs protesting anything of substance. The Glades weren't a sexy enough cause, but give the latest blonde-haired twenty-something who'd just hit it big on TV six or seven horn-tailed, red-spotted, sticky-beaked, pigeon-toed, multi-striped tree-owls who might occasionally fly over the two-mile zone pumping millions of barrels of oil out of the ground, and suddenly she began to feel a stronger connection to the land than the Ancient Ones, the Anasazi.
Two months later of course, the only red-spotted, sticky-beaked creature in sight would be the little blonde's flush face when she made it on TMZ for failing a breathalyzer test and cursing the cop arresting her, shouting the typical Hollywood star mantra: "Don't you know who I am?”
― Bobby Underwood, The Turquoise Shroud

“This species, the mute swan, became holy to Apollo. In remembrance of the death of the beloved Phaeton the bird is silent all its life until the very moment of its death, when it sings with terrible melancholy its strange and lovely goodbye, its swan song. In honour of Cygnus the young of all swans are called ‘cygnets’.”
― Stephen Fry, Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

“نشسته‌ام به در نگاه می‌کنم
دریچه آه می‌کشد
تو از کدام راه می‌رسی
جوانی مرا چه دلپذیر داشتی
مرا در این امید پیر کرده‌ای

نیامدی و دیر شد...”
― هوشنگ ابتهاج