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“I believe the quotation below will be sufficient to show how brilliant Coelho is:
‘Marie, let’s suppose that two firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterward, when they emerge and go over to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man’s face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face?
‘That’s a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course.’
‘No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him. And, vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I’d better have a wash.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m saying that, during the time I spent in the hospital, I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me thinking that they were worse than they were. Please, don’t let that happen to you.”
― The Zahir
‘Marie, let’s suppose that two firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterward, when they emerge and go over to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man’s face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face?
‘That’s a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course.’
‘No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him. And, vice versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I’d better have a wash.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m saying that, during the time I spent in the hospital, I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent or self-confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me thinking that they were worse than they were. Please, don’t let that happen to you.”
― The Zahir
“my mother
sensed a
war in her
womb,
and so she
raised me
to fight.”
―
sensed a
war in her
womb,
and so she
raised me
to fight.”
―
“I am two people. One goes through the motions, rolling from one thing to the next; the other is withdrawn, watching a complete stranger.”
― Outside In
― Outside In
Young Writers Group
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This group is for anyone, who loves writing, and is hoping to share their pieces with other people with the same passion, and get creative feedback an ...more
OGECHI’s 2025 Year in Books
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