Adam Elmahallawy

“Dear Milena,
I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“What has my country ever done to me, little girl? No land, no life, just a uniform and a gun.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“[...] Because, in all this house of mourning, yours are the only eyes that have wept.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles / Poirot Investigates

“Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.”
― Epicurus