Ash88

“How … ?” she began, and she stopped. She was too tired. She hoped that she wouldn’t have to say the rest of the sentence, that Billy would finish it for her. But Billy had no idea what was on her mind. “How what, Mother?” he prompted. She swallowed hard, shed some tears. Then she gathered energy from all over her ruined body, even from her toes and fingertips. At last she had accumulated enough to whisper this complete sentence: “How did I get so old?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“لا أريد أن أصعد من الحفرة. الحفرة تعجبني. الحفرة جيّدة. الحفرة هادئة.”
― ربيع جابر, البيت الأخير

“For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself now. He did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands. He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.

"Long ago," he said, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter Dreams

“عليه أن يرتفع، أن يرتفع دائمًا، فلا سبيل إلى النقاء إلا بالإرتفاع. وفوق القمة تسمع لغة الكواكب، وهمسات الفضاء، وأماني القوة والخلود، بعيدًا عن أنات الشكوى والخور و روائح العفن. الآن تشدو ألحان التكيّة بأغنيات الخلود، ،تعرض الحقيقة العشرات من وجوهها الخفية، وينكشف الغيب عن شتى المصائر. من هذه الشرفة يستطيع أن يتابع الأجيال في تعاقبها، أن يؤدي لكل جيل دورًا، وأن ينضم بصفة نهائية إلى أسرة الأجرام السماوية.”
― نجيب محفوظ, الحرافيش