Emaan > Emaan's Quotes

“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Words and phrases you think are carved into your bones can disappear in no time.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation – a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I’m colliding with a wall that won’t give. There’s no escape, just a hard surface that I keep ramming into over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“I could almost feel in the embrace that my concerns had been her concerns, my pain had been her pain.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“If there was a god, it seemed my mother must have had her foot on his neck, demanding good things come my way. That if we had to be ripped apart right at our turning point, just when things were really starting to get good, the least god could do was make a few of her daughter's pipe dreams come true.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Do you see the colours, Salama?' Kenan whispers.

The sunset is gorgeous, but it pales in comparison to him. He's drenched in the dying day's glow, a kaleidoscope of shades dancing on his face. Pink, orange, yellow, purple, red. Finally settling into an azure blue. It reminds me of Layla's painting. A colour so stark it would stain my fingers were I to touch it.

As the sun sinks, in those few precious moments when the world is caught between day and night, something shifts between Kenan and me. 'Yes,' I breathe. 'Yes.”
― Zoulfa Katouh, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

“Just on the other side, safety- not freedom. I'm leaving freedom behind, and I can feel the earth's grief when I get out of the car. The tired weeds try to encircle my ankles. begging me to stay. They murmur stories about my ancestors. The ones who stood right where I stand. The ones whose discoveries and civilization encompassed the whole world. The one whose blood runs through my veins. My footprints sink deep into the soil where theirs have long since been washed away. They plead with me: It's your country. This earth belongs to me and my children.”
― Zoulfa Katouh, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

“She wanted to do things without having to worry what others thought.
She simply lived for her freedom.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“The kindness in his smile seemed infinite.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Sometimes life is stranger than fiction, but sometimes it's incomparable in other ways. Sometimes it's heaven that the false fire of imagination could never capture.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don’t trust.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?’ But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“But I’ve never been great at staying angry. My memory eats at the edges of it.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“In this moment, I wish I were a poet. Not to speak beauty. But to speak pain.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“He steps forward, hopeful. We teeter on the edge of forgiveness.”
― Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage

“Be careful who you point your blame at, Layla. And remember that anytime you point your finger to accuse someone, there are three fingers beneath it, curled to point right back at you.”
― Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place for Us

“Afsoos was the word in Urdu. There was no equivalent in English. It was a specific kind of regret - not wishing he had acted differently, but a helpless sadness at the situation as it was, a sense that it could not have been another way.”
― Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place for Us

“When man begins to think that he is responsible for writing the script of the world, he forgets the forces that dream up our reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“To admit uncertainty is to admit to weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is a frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“It may seem strange that people who have already attained a position of power through violence invest so much time in justifying their plunder with words. But even plunderers are human beings whose violent ambitions must contend with the guilt that gnaws at them when they meet the eyes of their victims. And so a story must be told, one that raises a wall between themselves and those they seek to throttle and rob.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message