Naomi

“Then I read this: “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45). That's it! I was thunderstruck. Never before had I heard anything like this. But I knew that this was the message I had been searching for all my life. For years I had struggled to know who my enemy was, and I had looked for my enemies outside of Islam and Palestine, but I suddenly realized that the Israelis were not my enemies. Neither was Hamas, nor my Uncle Ibrahim, nor the kid who beat me… nor the ape like guards... I saw that enemies were not defined by nationality, religion, or color. I understood that we all share the same common enemies. Greed, pride, and all of the bad ideas and the darkness of the devil that live inside us. That meant I could love anyone.”
― Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas

“They weren't children; they knew this was a special time and a fleeting one, but there was nothing cynical in that recognition, nor at all resigned to eventual stagnation: they were, simply, in the first great thaw of spring, and they were enjoying the warmth of the sun, without demanding that it never rain or snow again.”
― Brent Weeks, The Burning White

“He studied what he'd long avoided, and there was now no detail obscured, no truth denied. Here he stood in the cold light of eternity, and by some magic greater than chromaturgy, all that was wretched and self-deprecatory and judgmental and hating fell away like a serpent's scale from his eye.
He had seen through Orholam's mask of being an old prophet, and beheld something ineffably beguiling beneath the old prophet's age spots and deep wrinkles and snaggle teeth.
And now he saw something of that same beauty in himself, an image of the divine.
Here was Dazen Guile through the eyes of charity.
And as unwilling tears flooded his eyes, he realized that —wonder of wonders!—he was glorious.”
― Brent Weeks, The Burning White

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone