هتان

“لا أعتقد أن أيا منكم أحسّ بهذا الشعور من قبل، شعور طاقيّة الإخفاء: أن ترى شخصًا لا يراك، أن تحمل هموم الدنيا وبجوارك شخص يضحك على مشهد كوميدي في التلفزيون، أو أن تستيقظ من نومك فجأة على صوت شجار عائلي محتدم لا يخصّك”
― Ibraheem Abbas, حوجن [Ḥawjan]

“We must take our sentences seriously, which means we must understand them philosophically, and the odd thing is that the few who do, who take them with utter sober seriousness, the utter sober seriousness of right-wing parsons and political saviors, the owners of Pomeranians, are the liars who want to be believed, the novelists and poets, who know that the creatures they imagine have no other being than the sounding syllables which the reader will speak into his own weary and distracted head. There are no magic words. To say the words is magical enough.”
― William H. Gass, The World Within the Word

“I suppose it is submerged realities that give to dreams their curious air of hyper-reality. But perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze-like, through which everything one sees in a dream seems, paradoxically, much clearer. A pond becomes a lake, a breeze becomes a storm, a handful of dust is a desert, a grain of sulphur in the blood is a volcanic inferno. What manner of theater is it, in which we are at once playwright, actor, stage manager, scene painter and audience?”
― W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

“الإنسان بطبعه جشعٌ منوع.. يؤوسٌ هلوع.. قنوطٌ جزوع.. مع علمه أن أجله مقطوع.. وأنه لن يموت من جوع!
لو كنت إنسيًا وأعلم أنني لن أعمّر سوى ستين أو سبعين سنة فقط، فسأقضي هذه السنين القليلة بين أحبابي، أشبع منهم قبل أن أفارقهم وأندم.. كما تندمون أنتم.”
― Ibraheem Abbas, حوجن [Ḥawjan]