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Quote by Amal El-Mohtar

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This Is How You Lose the Time War

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Amal El-Mohtar
Amal El-Mohtar

Amal El-Mohtar is a renowned author whose works span various literary genres, including novels, poetry, and plays. Her writing is acclaimed for its rich imagination and profound emotional expression. more

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“So far as the beggar woman is concerned, there was certainly neither anything good nor anything bad in it, I was simply too distracted or too much preoccupied with one thing to act in any other way but according to vague memories. And one such memory says, for instance: 'Don't give too much to beggars, you'll regret it later.' Once as a very small boy I was given a Sechserl and felt a great urge to hand it to an old beggar woman who sat between the Grosse and the Kleine Ring. But the sum seemed to me enormous, a sum which probably never before had been given to a beggar, so I was ashamed in front of the beggar woman to do something so unheard-of, but give it to her I felt I must. I therefore changed the Sechserl into ten Kreuzers, gave one to the beggar woman, ran round the whole block of the Town Hall and the arcade near the Kleine Ring, arrived from the left as a completely new benefactor, gave the beggar woman another Kreuzer, started to run again and actually made this round ten times (or maybe not quite so many, for I believe the beggar woman lost her patience later and disappeared). In any case, toward the end I was so exhausted, morally as well, that I ran straight home and cried until my mother replaced the Sechserl. You see, I have bad luck with beggars, but I declare myself prepared to pay out my entire present and future fortune in the smallest Viennese bank notes to a beggar woman standing by the Opera, on condition that you're present and I may feel you close to me.”

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Book:Letters to Milena
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“Eis van jezelf geen woord dat onze vormeloze ziel volkomen inlijst en in vuren letters haar verlicht en schittert als een crocus verloren in een grasveld grijs van stof. De man te zijn die in zekerheid wandelt, bevriend met de anderen en met zichzelf, zijn schaduw is het een zorg wat de hondster stempelt op een bladderende muur. Vraag niet om de spreuk die werelden opent, maar om een lettergreep, knoestig en droog als een tak. Slechts dit kunnen wij je zeggen vandaag: dat wat wij niet zijn, dat wat wij niet willen. vertaling Jan Emmens”

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Author:Eugenio Montale
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“There was an astounding variety to go through. He had seen a fat one addressed to Paris—the envelope sealed with a Christmas tree sticker. A card to the Czech Republic. And one to India. Another of Morley's. A small red envelope going to England. A lot to the United States. A lot more for Canada. Another of Morley's. And a second, in a child's printing, addressed to the North Pole. It was affecting. All of them presumably said the same thing. The one thing that is so hard to say in person, but that everyone says at the bottom of a card: love. Love, me. Love, you. Love, Dave. Love, Stuart.”

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Book:Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe
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“Why couldn’t you just live with Reginald? He seems to be managing the world okay.” "Unthinkable,” he said, flatly. "Reginald may be more familiar with the modern era than I am, but he is also the reason I am in this predicament. Additionally, he is chaos incarnate. Before you moved in with me, I was entirely dependent on his assistance. It was at least as terrible for both of us as you might imagine. The practical jokes he played on me, even while I was still in a coma . . .”

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Book:My Roommate Is a Vampire
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“Dear Nick, I Know we made this decision together. I know we both thought it would be less painful to break up before the distance did it for us. I really believed it was the right thing to do: that it wouldn't hurt as much this way. But I can't imagine anything could be harder than this. And I don't think I'm OK. I came back from New York and I was so devastated I shut myself away from my best friends, and now they've shut themselves away from me too. I've done everything I can to feel happy again. I've been to Morocco and ridden on camels and danced in the desert: I've chased my inner star. I've thrown myself into modelling and done whatever it takes to make new Friends at school so I'm not alone, even though I don't really understand them most of the time and I don't think they understand me either. I'm trying so hard to move on without you. But I'm not, Nick. I'm not moving anywhere. All the things I wrote in the last letter... they weren't true. Or they were, but it wasn't what I really meant. I was hiding behind Facts and figures because I didn't Know how to say this: Every day you're changing, you're growing, you're living, you're out there being you, and the only thing staying the same is me. I'm still here, holding on to you. Stuck in the past. Trapped in it. Burying myself in it. Drowning in it. And I don't know what to do to make it better. I miss you, Nick. I've missed you every day, every hour and every second since you've been gone. And I miss the bit of me you took with you. Harriet xxx”

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“Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because it is part of you, because there is the whole Milena (the translation confirms it), whereas here is just the one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna. So Czech, please. And send the feuilletons you mention, too. Let them be shabby, you have also read your way through the shabbiness of my story, how far I don't know. Perhaps I can do this, too; but if I can't then I'll remain stuck in the best of prejudices.”

LanguageLetters
Book:Letters to Milena
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“Nevertheless, the chief thing is: Whatever the others surrounding you in a wide circle may say about you, in superior wisdom, in bestial (except that beasts are not like that) denseness, in diabolical kindness, in homicidal love - I, I, Milena, know to my last fibre that whatever you do you will be doing right, whether you stay in Vienna, or do now this, now that. What, after all, should I be doing with you if I didn't know this? As in the deep sea there is no tiniest spot that isn't always under the heaviest pressure, so it is with you, but any other life is a disgrace and makes me sick to think of; until recently I thought I couldn't endure life, couldn't endure people, and was very ashamed of it, but you confirm to me now that it wasn't life that seemed undendurable to me.”

LettersLetters To Milena
Book:Letters to Milena
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