Alaa

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
― Arundhati Roy

“وأَنا الغريب بكُلِّ ما أُوتيتُ من
لُغَتي . ولو أخضعتُ عاطفتي بحرف
الضاد ، تخضعني بحرف الياء عاطفتي ،
وللكلمات وَهيَ بعيدةٌ أَرضٌ تُجاوِرُ
كوكباً أَعلى . وللكلمات وَهيَ قريبةٌ
منفى . ولا يكفي الكتابُ لكي أَقول :
وجدتُ نفسي حاضراً مِلْءَ الغياب .
وكُلَّما فَتَّشْتُ عن نفسي وجدتُ
الآخرين . وكُلَّما فتَّشْتُ عَنْهُمْ لم
أَجد فيهم سوى نَفسي الغريبةِ ،
هل أَنا الفَرْدُ الحُشُودُ ؟”
― محمود درويش, جدارية

“Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. He made her feel as though the world belonged to them- as though it lay before them like an opened frog on a dissecting table, begging to be examined.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things