b. > b.'s Quotes

“Farsi Couplet:
Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast.


English Translation:
If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this”
― Amir Khusrau, The Writings of Amir Khusrau: 700 Years After the Prophet: A 13th-14th Century Legend of Indian-Sub-Continent

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“For you, a thousand times over”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Marriage can wait, education cannot.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”
― Khaled Hosseini

“I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

“Each day has a color, a smell.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices

“Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path—all they do is trip you up.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

“Aren't we all pawns in the hands of time, the greatest player of them all?”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

“wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you’ll wait forever.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar