Marwa

“What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?”
― Nikolai Gogol

“Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence

“The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care