Tahoora Hashmi > Tahoora's Quotes

“The world is a mysterious place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail.
On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities only extending to how far our vision goes.
For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us.
For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.
And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is.
Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Maybe that's what living is--recognizing the marvels and oddities around you.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Never, ever quake in the face of hate, Zayneb.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Your resistance to my existence is futile.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“could do. My stomach hit bottom. "I'm really stuck with this." "Try not to look at it like that." "I look at it the way it is. That's why you keep showing up? To tell me…" I began to hyperventilate. "I can't ever… get rid… of it?" I gulped air. "Breathe, Echo." What was with this guy? He claimed he'd help me but clearly had no intention of doing so. I didn't appreciate being manipulated. My breathing relaxed, and I pulled myself together.”
― Skye Genaro, The Echo Saga Books 1 & 2: Echo Across Time and Echo Into Darkness Book Bundle

“I am, day after day, falling in love with the years that dwell in his wrinkled face and the memories of the old days which are the beats of his weak heart.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“The refugee card was and continues to be an insult to remind us of the little that refugees get in comparison with what they have really lost. Would a bag of flour compensate for the farmland they once had? Would a bag of sugar make up for the bitter misery those people have always felt after losing their sweet homes to dwell in refugee camps? Would the two bottles of oil make them forget their olive trees, which had been mercilessly uprooted as they themselves were? Or maybe it is simply a declaration that they are temporary refugees who once had the land which, as long as this card is still in their hands, would still be waiting for them to return. Only a shot of sharp pain brought me back to the present.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“Gaza Writes Back' provides conclusive evidence that telling stories is an act of life, that telling stories is resistance, and that telling stories shapes our memories.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“All that I can tell you is that nothing can justify it, not even the most sacred ends in the world, not even peace itself, understand me?'

'Yes, Mom. Nothing can justify our scars.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“What is there beyond the sky?' I asked my mother.

'Paradise.'

'What does it look like?'

'Like children’s dreams.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“If a Palestinian bulldozer were ever invented (Haha, I know!) and I were given the chance to be in an orchard, in Haifa for instance,I would never uproot a tree an Israeli planted. No Palestinian would. To Palestinians, the tree is sacred, and so is the Land bearing it”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“There's a Palestine that dwells inside all of us, a Palestine that needs to be rescued: a free Palestine where all people regardless of color, religion, or race coexist; a Palestine where the meaning of the word "occupation" is only restricted to what the dictionary says rather than those plenty of meanings and connotations of death, destruction, pain, suffering, deprivation, isolation and restrictions that Israel has injected the word with.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Writes Back

“Letting go isn’t about forgetting. It’s balancing moving forward with life, and looking back from time to time, remembering the people in it.”
― Dustin Thao, You've Reached Sam

“If the ending is this painful, I don’t know if this was worth it all.”
― Dustin Thao, You've Reached Sam

“Life will pass right by you,” she says, her eyes focused on the road. “And you end up missing the little things, the moments you don’t think matter—but they do. Moments that make you forget about everything else. Just like with your writing,” she adds out of nowhere. “You don’t write to get to the end. You write because you enjoy doing it. You write and don’t want it to end. Does that make some sense?”
― Dustin Thao, You've Reached Sam

“We have too many voices inside our heads. You have to pick out the ones that mean something to you. What story do you want to tell?”
― Dustin Thao, You've Reached Sam

“Yusef, ‘I have anxiety’ is a full and complete statement. I don’t have to explain the what and why to you!”
― Tiffany D. Jackson, White Smoke

“Something blooms inside my chest and I rip it at the root.”
― Tiffany D. Jackson, White Smoke

“The biggest mistake you can make is trying to interpret someone's actions in a way that fits your definition for love.”
― Nisha Sharma, Dating Dr. Dil