Nouf

“I've no personality,' I would tell myself. My curiosity embraced everything; I believed in an absolute truth, in the need for moral law; my thoughts adapted themselves to their objects; if occasionally one of them took me by surprise, it was because it reflected something that was surprising. I preferred good to evil and despised that which should be despised. I could find no trace of my own subjectivity. I had wanted myself to be boundless, and I had become as shapeless as the infinite. The paradox was that I became aware of this deficiency at the very moment when I discovered my individuality; my universal aspiration had seemed to me until then to exist in its own right; but now it had become a character trait: 'Simone is interested in everything.' I found myself limited by my refusal to be limited.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

“As a side effect of modern warfare, we had the peculiar privilege of watching the destruction of our country on television.”
― Sara Nović, Girl at War

“حَمتني المكتبة من العُزلة بقدر ما حَمتني من الناس، وهي الوسط المثالي بين الإثنين .”
― راضي النماصي

“Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each another. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. What matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open, because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last.”
― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone