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سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

Book by Louis Yako · 6 quotes · Arabic Poetry, Arabic Literature, Loss

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سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere] Quotes

“Are You Afraid of Sadness?” In an old interview with a famous and talented Iraqi actress, the interviewer asked, 'Why are you afraid of sadness?' The actress responded, 'I am afraid of it because it quickly takes you to a place from which you can never return.' And exactly as she answered, insightful viewers could feel the sadness on her face, indicating that the actress herself wasn’t truly present in the interview— sadness had long since taken her, with no return. November 19, 2023”

LossGriefSadnessSorrowDepressionArabic PoetryArabic Literature
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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“Losers" Losers are closer to my heart, because they were right... Because integrity doesn’t win the way it does in shallow Hollywood scripts. Integrity always loses— too many fear it, too many sell out, and too many find its demands too heavy to carry. I love losers because they were right. I, too, once placed my bet on humanity— and I lost.”

JusticeLossPrinciplesIntegrityEthicsRebellionLoserComplicityArabic PoetrySelling Out
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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“Sorrow in the Heart of an Apple” I tidied my old sorrow, wrapped it gently in scented cloth, and buried it beneath the apple tree in our village orchard. Seasons rolled by... And I believed it was finished, forgotten, even the burial site lost to memory. Then came harvest. I plucked a red apple— shiny, luscious, radiant with promise. But with the first bite, I tasted it. That same sorrow, aged but unmistakable. It had not only survived— it had multiplied. Now here I am, face to face again, finding it in the heart of every apple.”

LifeLife LessonsLossGriefMemoryTraumaForgettingArabic PoetryArabic LiteratureThe Human Condition
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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“Hand Watches” I opened the drawer where I store old keepsakes and tokens. My eyes paused on hand watches with dead batteries, frozen in time… Gifts from teachers and friends— offered to honor my accomplishments, to praise my respect for time. It never occurred to them, or to me, that Time could die of a heart attack— that it would cease to matter the day my homeland was occupied and destroyed. The day the plunderers —both foreign and within— colluded to burn and erase all that was beautiful. Since then, I’ve refused to wear hand watches, and I never will until my people reclaim their Time and dignity. And when that day comes, Time will no longer matter. For then, I will become— a butterfly, a sparrow, a daffodil or an orange blossom, perhaps an apricot blossom on a branch, an unstoppable stream of water flowing beyond time and timing. In that same drawer, I found pens that had run dry, like mummified corpses. In a moment of despair, a lightning bolt of realization struck me— leaving behind a terrifying question: What if this is a wound that no amount of time can heal— a cause so vast that all the world’s ink cannot write its cure?”

WarTimeLossExileInvasionRefugeesColonizationArabic PoetryDisplacementArabic Literature
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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“Lights” Lights of churches, monasteries, Christmas trees, and magnificent mosques. The dim lights inside warm houses in every foreign city where I wandered alone. The far-away headlights of cars crossing bridges, watched from the windows of dreary hotels on clear, moonlit nights. Candlelight and lanterns, the lights of small shops in ancient, forgotten alleys, the lights of ships sailing to places I will never see, lamp-post lights on dark, rainy winter nights, solitary lighthouses and the lights of unknown fishermen, the glittering lights I saw in the eyes of kind strangers in cities tourists never visit. All these lights I once loved now break me; they remind me of the magical light that was extinguished in your eyes…”

LoveLightLossDarknessLonelinessLongingYearningLost LoveArabic PoetryArabic Literature
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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