Ahlam

“What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself”
― Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

“For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.”
― Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes in order not to see the bad things in life.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida