AJ > AJ's Quotes

“I wander over to the computer desk and sit down. I think of the field in Aleppo before the fire, when the bees hovered above the land like clouds, humming their song. I can see Mustafa taking a comb out of a hive, inspecting it closely, dipping a finger into the honey, tasting it. That was our paradise, at the edge of the desert and the edge of the city.

I look at my face on the dark screen, thinking of what to write — Mustafa, I believe I am unwell. I have no dreams left.”
― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price.”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“It's only the arrangement of matter that has changed, like a deck of cards being reshuffled.
But life is like a Straight Flush: once you shuffle, it's gone.”
― Cixin Liu

“On the night my parents were such bad role models about Paul and me getting together, my mother wound up saying to me that the real reason he and I shouldn't have a baby together yet didn't have anything to do with our education or our careers, as important as those things are. She said, 'When you have a child with someone, you're bound to them forever. That can be beautiful and miraculous, and yet a burden, too. The knowledge that your life is intertwined with another's, for all time. It transforms your relationship in ways I can't begin to describe.
Before you take that step with someone, you must be ready to accept the destruction of the life you had together beforehand-and have faith that what you two create afterward can be even greater.”
― Claudia Gray

“I will never tire of watching tapes with Denny. He knows so much, and I have learned so much from him. He said nothing more to me; he continued watching his tapes. But my thoughts turned to what he had just taught me. Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like i'm standing on the edge of an Abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.”
― Stephen King

“Now I know that grief is a whetstone that sharpens all your love, all your happiest memories, into blades that tear you apart from within.”
― Claudia Gray, A Thousand Pieces of You

“But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know.”
― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“You could know the what of something forever and never discover the why.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Acceptance