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Quote by Hala Alyan

“I'm here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I'm here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.”

Quote by Hala Alyan

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Hala Alyan

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“One lovely twilight, with the near garden in riotous bloom, Genji stepped onto a gallery that gave him a view of the sea, and such was the supernal grace of his motionless figure that he seemed in that setting not to be of this world at all. Over soft white silk twill and aster he wore a dress cloak of deep blue, its sash only very casually tied; and his voice slowly chanting “I, a disciple of the Buddha Shakyamuni…” was more beautiful than any they had ever heard before. From boats rowing by at sea came a chorus of singing voices. With a pang he watched them, dim in the offing, like little birds borne on the waters, and sank into a reverie as cries from lines of geese on high mingled with the creaking of oars, until tears welled forth, and he brushed them away with a hand so gracefully pale against the black of his rosary that the young gentlemen pining for their sweethearts at home were all consoled.”

“He glanced back at his ship, and a sigh escaped his lips, his heart fraught with the appreciation and melancholy that understanding his own situation must evince. His place as Captain of such a crew was as evanescent as the rest of life, and while they were all collected together now, being of the same character, the same mind, having the same predilections and ambitions, there was no saying when it might be over. He might be called away on urgent business, or his crew might grow anxious for a more settled life, Rannig might wish to return home, or the Director of the Marridon Academy might finally rot, calling Bartleby back to Marridon for the promotion he so richly deserved. He exhaled, reveling in the pining sigh of impermanence which living in such uncertainty must produce.”

“Every so often night plays these little tricks. A knot of air pushes quietly through the darkness, and a feeling that has converged in some far-off place tumbles down like a falling star and lands just in front of you, and then you wake up. Two people live the same dream. All this takes place in the space of a single night, and the feeling only lasts until morning. The next morning it gets lost in the light, and you’re no longer even sure it happened. But nights like this are long. They continue forever, glittering like a jewel.”

“În ziua aceea, am crezut că dețin ceva, un adevăr care-mi va schimba viața. Însă nimic de această natură nu e dobândit pentru totdeauna. Lumea trece prin noi ca o apă și pentru o vreme ne împrumută aparența ei. Apoi se retrage și ne lasă în fața vidului pe care-l purtăm în noi, în fața acestui soi de incapacitate capitală a sufletului pe care trebuie să învățăm s-o suportăm, s-o înfruntăm și care, paradoxal, e poate resortul nostru cel mai sigur.”

“Imagine someone from that future could go back in time and talk to you—someone who lives at a time in which mankind only inhabits one planet, who is arguably among the final generations of humans capable of permanently changing the future of human cultures across thousands of planets by creating a durable culture and high-fertility-rate family that carries prosocial values into the future. Why would you tell them you didn’t make an effort to fix things while one person's efforts could still make a difference?”

“Over the next two hours, I would learn something about time. Something devastating. There are moments in life when time moves with its own will, not bound by any timekeeper's measure. It may speed up, passing so fast that life itself becomes a blur, a memory before it is a moment. On a different occasion, time may slow to a crawl, each second becoming an hour, a day, or a lifetime. Which means that time cannot be trusted.”