Tempest Lew > Tempest's Quotes

“Above the hills that separate Marengo from the sea, the sky was streaked with red. And the wind coming over the hills brought the smell of salt with it. It was going to be a beautiful day.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“One bitter orange tree was her favourite, but no tree that she planted and tended never withered. But still, it was our house, our courtyard, our trees. She lived with us, that's all. She didn't own the building, or the land, or even us. I think of her as my grandmother, but we weren't really her grandchildren.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“Her life was like a paper kite. She would lift her head to watch as it went bobbing by, the breeze taking it farther and farther away.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“She had died, gone silently, left the world as she lived in it, without a home, without a field, without a beloved one to hold her close, without a brother to take care of her, and never having children who came out of her own body.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“The clear, beautiful sunset and the dead body.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“Now, memory becomes a vanishing fragrance, the memory is gone, and this is where the pure, calm sunset fades into nothing.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“All women become their mothers. That is their tragedy.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“When my grandmother died, the bitter orange tree died. Day after day, it withered a little more until it was completely dried out. In vain we watered it, each taking our turn, and my father replaced the dirt just beneath and around it with fresh soil. He bought the fertilizer, and the Bengali who worked for us enlisted the help of his friends who worked on farms. They poured all their experience into the bitter orange tree, but it didn't respond to anyone's efforts. The narinjah made up its mind, and before the soil over my grandmother's burial place was dry, it had stopped sucking in water and air. It began to give off a smell of rot. The odor of goodbye.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“The fragile bird of life took us along. We clung to its wings so hard that they dissolved in our grip; and so we tried to put those feathers on ourselves. We dressed ourselves in those feathers, and we drank the blood of that bird we had destroyed, and we told ourselves, "We will go on." We kept saying that, even as the bird apart, ripped to pieces in our fingers, and as we had to endure the acrid taste of its blood beneath our tongues. "We will go on," we said. And then we waited expectantly for the bird of life to soar again into the sky, taking us with it. We waited and waited.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“He raced other boys his age through the little ponds left behind by rainstorms.”
― Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree

“Wedged between a pizzeria and a grocery, the old bookstore Les Vraies Richesses, once the haunt of famous writers.”
― Kaouther Adimi, A Bookshop In Algiers

“But he had been forgotten. No one came to replace him. Unable to abandon the premises and having no plans or place to go, he stayed on without ever complaining or saying a word to anyone. That is all we know about this man.”
― Kaouther Adimi, A Bookshop In Algiers

“Perched up on wooden stilts the house seemed to shrink from the forest behind it and crane eagerly out to the distant sea.”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“There are 4 hermits in this island... four real ones. Others pretend but they leaven when the rainy season comes.”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“Because I wished it. Isn't that enough?”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

“Ove glares out of the window. The poser is jogging. Not that Ove is provoked by jogging. Not at all. Ove couldn’t give a damn about people jogging. What he can’t understand is why they have to make such a big thing of it.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Twenty pairs of shoes but they never know where the shoehorn is; houses filled with microwave ovens and flat-screen televisions, yet they couldn’t tell you which anchor bolt to use for a concrete wall if you threatened them with a box cutter.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove’s father worked for the railways. The palms of his hands looked like someone had carved into leather with knives, and the wrinkles in his face were so deep that when he exerted himself the sweat was channeled through them down to his chest.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Every other day they put out food for a family of birds living in a rotting tree at the back of the house. It was important, Ove understood, that it had to be every other day. He didn’t know why, but that didn’t matter.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove keeps his eyes on him, as if watching a blind man at the wheel of a crowded city bus.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He has to sort of struggle for a mouthful of air, like a fish in an overturned bowl.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“She believed in destiny. That all the roads you walk in life, in one way or another, “lead to what has been predetermined for you.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“When the old truck, the one they used to drive up and down the railway track, broke down one night more than ten miles outside of town, in one of the worst downpours of the whole year, Ove managed to repair it with nothing but a screwdriver and half a roll of gauze tape.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove