Omnia

“مجانينَ أريد، حفنةً من المجانين... يثورون على كل المعايير المألوفة، يتجاوزون كل المقاييس المعروفة. وبينما الناس إلى المغريات يتهافتون، هؤلاء منها يفرون وإليها لا يلتفتون. أريد حفنة ممن نسبوا إلى خفة العقل لشدة حرصهم على دينهم وتعلقهم بنشر إيمانهم؛ هؤلاء هم "المجانين" الذين مدحهم سيد المرسلين، إذ لا يفكرون بملذات أنفسهم، ولا يتطلعون إلى منصب أو شهرة أو جاه، ولا يرومون متعة الدنيا ومالها، ولا يفتنون بالأهل والبنين... يا رب، أتضرع إليك... خزائن رحمتك لا نهاية لها، أعطِ كل سائل مطلبه، أما أنا فمطلبي حفنة من المجانين...”
― فتح الله كولن

“A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured - the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper