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Exile Quotes

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Exile Quotes

“Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.”

LoveLifeInspirationalChildrenSoulWisdomBodyInspirationRunningBeautifulHappinessDesirePoetryMotivationTimeSufferingGirlPassionLiteratureSexWomenGoalImaginationWorkFreedomPowerCourageAliveDreamsFeminismStrengthInspireSweetInspirational LifeLife PhilosophyActivityTravelAmbitionLivingSurvivalHumanDiscoveryRomanticFemaleEmpowermentExperienceBraverySacredWineWordsMemoryPassionatePainfulGoalsSeparationSurrenderSelf DiscoveryWanderSensualityKissSensualWomanGentleGirlsFeminineExplorationDaringFirst LoveLovingTravelerWomanhoodSeductionFemininityExileCompassGirl PowerTravel QuotesTravellerFemale EmpowermentHeartsDirectionSurviveYoung LoveFeminismoSeductiveWomen S LiberationDriveWomen S InspirationalFemale CharactersWomen S StrengthWanderlustWildnessSufferAllegoryWanderingTravellingWanderersWandererSecretiveFemmePrettyFemalesWoman S StrengthRoamingRoman PayneThe SelfFemale BeautyFeminine PowerGirl QuotesWoman S CharacterPayneFemale HeroWanderessVaginaMapFemale LiberationForeplayTraveling AloneBeing AliveEuropaThe WanderessOral SexTravailPoetessSeduceFeminismo RadicalExpatriateFundamentalEnjoyingVaginasAdventuressDreameressOralTraveling Around The WorldWayfaringWord MeaningsTraveling AbroadGirlpowerRoamWomans StrengthFillesRoman Payne QuoteTormentingWanderloveTravaillerWayfarerAestheteAt OneFemenismThe Love Of EuropaWanderess QuoteBody FluidsSeduce WomanSeduce WomenTags AdventuressWandranWest GermanicWine Women
Book:The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition
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“I have found myself leaning heavily on this pain. At first I tried to silence it, thinking it would go and leave me to my agitated content. That it would linger for a season, a firm reminder of the disquiet that lurks and coils below the surface of the stubbornly self-gratifying vision of our lives. Far from going, it became more clear, more precisely located, concrete, an object that occupied space within me, cockroachy, dark and intimate, emitting thick, stinking fumes that reeked of loneliness and terror. When I woke up in the morning, I groped for it, then sighed with plunging recognition as I felt it stirring inside me, alive and well.”

PainFearLonelinessTerrorIsolationBelongingExileOut Of PlaceRefugee Experience
Book:Admiring Silence
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“For how little have we lost, when the two finest things of all will accompany us wherever we go, universal nature and our individual virtue. Believe me, this was the intention of whoever formed the universe, whether all-powerful god, or incorporeal reason creating mighty works, or divine spirit penetrating all things from greatest to smallest with even pressure, or fate and the unchanging sequence of causation - this, I say, was the intention, that only the most worthless of our possessions should come into the power of another. Whatever is best for a human being lies outside human control: it can be neither given nor taken away.”

HumanityNatureVirtueHumanPossessionExilePossessions
Book:On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It
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“Can you imagine being royalty but being treated like a servant? Can you imagine being the daughter of the true king but being held in low regard and never setting foot in your home country for as long as you live? Can you imagine being destined to reign yet never even hearing your true name? Of course you can.”

HomeDestinyIdentityLongingSelf WorthBelongingTrue SelfExileRoyaltyDaughter Of God
Book:Becoming Myself: Embracing God's Dream of You
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“In the silence of EXILE, echoes of longing resonate, whispering tales of a home left behind. Dreams cling to distant landscapes, and the heart, a wanderer, seeks solace in the shadows of nostalgia. The soul, a nomad, yearns for the warmth of belonging, tracing memories like constellations in the vast emptiness of distance. Exile, a poignant coherence of loss, carries the weight of unspoken goodbyes, yet within its somber notes, resilience blossoms, a testament to the enduring spirit that persists, resilient in the face of separation.”

HomeLongingResilienceNostalgiaSeparationEmptinessBelongingExileGoodbyes
Author:Monika Ajay Kaul
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“The Meaning of 'Home' As I travel from one city to another From one country to another From one sorrow to another, I encounter thousands of faces: In streets, shops, parks, and cafés. They all ask me the same painful question: 'Where are you from?' As if they know, I am from a place that lost itself and lost me On a long, cold, and sad winter night. They ask me: 'What is your country known for?' I tell them: 'My country is known for exporting sad stories, refugees, and displaced people. All those who were cursed by being born in it.' Similar questions continue to be asked in cocktail parties, In hypocritical and mediocre gatherings, In conferences and boring meetings. Some pretentiously ask me: 'How do you define "home"?' I respond with Ghassan Knafani’s words ringing in my ears: 'Home is for all of this not to happen.' April 19, 2014”

InspirationalHomeWisdomPoetryCreativityExileAlienationArabic Literature
Book:أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]
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“Never say that you can't do something, or that something seems impossible, or that something can't be done, no matter how discouraging or harrowing it may be; human beings are limited only by what we allow ourselves to be limited by: our own minds. We are each the masters of our own reality; when we become self-aware to this: absolutely anything in the world is possible. Master yourself, and become king of the world around you. Let no odds, chastisement, exile, doubt, fear, or ANY mental virii prevent you from accomplishing your dreams. Never be a victim of life; be it's conqueror.”

WorldMindDreamRealityTruthFearDoubtImpossiblePossibilityEmpowermentVictimAccomplishResilienceDisorderRelativeMentalExileVirusesKingDiscouragementConquerorMasterVirusChastisementCan TVirii
Author:Mike Norton
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“From the moment that man believes neither in God nor in immortal life, he becomes 'responsible for everything alive, for everything that, born of suffering, is condemned to suffer from life.' It is he, and he alone, who must discover law and order. Then the time of exile begins, the endless search for justification, the aimless nostalgia, 'the most painful, the most heartbreaking question, that of the heart which asks itself: where can I feel at home?”

HomeNostalgiaExilePurpose In Life
Book:The Rebel
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“You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use— silence, exile, and cunning.”

HomeActionBeliefChurchSilenceExpressionExileCunningServe
Book:A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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“There have been plenty of people in my life - family, friends, colleagues, lovers, a forecast of the usual suspects that make a person's social circle - but mine has always felt a little bent out of shape. None of the relationships I've ever formed with another human being feel real to me, more like a series of missed connections. People might recognize my face, they may even know my name, but they'll never know the real me. Nobody does. I've always been selfish with the true thoughts and feelings inside my head. I don't share them with anyone because I can't. There is a version of me I can only ever be with myself.”

LonelinessSolitudeIndependenceExileIntroversionFitting InEstrangementNot Fitting In
Book:His & Hers
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“إنّ من الضروري البدء بالسيطرة على الشوارع والزوايا والسماء والمقاهي والشمس، والأهم من ذلك كله، السيطرة على الظل. حين يدرك المرء الإحساس بأنّ شارعًا ما ليس غريبًا عنه، حينها فقط يتوقّف الشارع عن النظر إلى الواحد منّا على أنّه غريب. وهذا حال الأشياءِ كلّها”

LonelinessExileالوحدةOutlandishnessالغربة
Author:Mario Benedetti
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“لقد كنت الناجي الوحيد من شعب منقرض وهو يطأ أرضاً جديدة، كنت كقادم من زمن آخر، مسافر كوني، أو حتى كائن من كوكب آخر هبط على الأرض، وفضلاً عن ذلك كنت مجرداً من كلّ القوى. شعرتُ بالتيه لكأنّي أحد الإسرائيليين في سيناء، ولكنها كانت غابة خضراء هذه المرة.”

LossLonelinessWeaknessExileExtinctionWanderingForeignSpacetimeStraySpace Traveller
Book:صراع الأقنعة
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“I can see you starin', honey Like he's just your understudy Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me Second, third, and hundredth chances Balancin' on breaking branches Those eyes add insult to injury I think I've seen this film before And I didn't like the ending I'm not your problem anymore So who am I offending now? You were my crown Now I'm in exile seein' you out I think I've seen this film before So I'm leavin' out the side door”

LoveLifeBreakupReal LoveExileTaylor Swift
Author:Hearts Can Break and Never Make a Sound
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“Knight, of course, felt that anyone's willing assistance tainted the whole thing. Either you are hidden or you're not, no middle ground. He wished to be unconditionally alone, exiled to an island of his own creation, an uncontacted tribe of one.”

CreationAloneAssistanceExileOneHiddenTaintedIslandMiddle GroundTribeExiledUnconditionallyUncontacted
Book:The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
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“Of the Russian exiles, Lenin is the last I should have picked as a man of destiny. [Angelica] Balabanoff says that she cannot remember where she first met Lenin and that even when she became conscious of his existence he made no impression upon her. Many others would say the same, but I remember vividly my first meeting with him. It was at dinner in a small Greek restaurant in Soho, not far from the house which bears the tablet commemorating the fact that Karl Marx once lived there. I met him again at Stuttgart, [at the International Socialist Congress] in 1907. In the meantime he had acquired the reputation of being a brilliant student of Marxian economics, a dangerous antagonist in all intra-party controversies and a master of revolutionary tactics and sectarian conspiracies. At the conference he was usually surrounded by a small group of whispering disciples. … Some of Lenin's enemies believed that he was a paid emissary of the Russian police. His tactics and the dissensions which he promoted among the Russian socialists aroused suspicion. He was a fanatic, a disorganizer, a sectarian, who gave no indication in pre-war days of having the qualities of a national leader. He won his battles but they were always directed against his comrades.”

DestinyLondonExileRussian RevolutionKarl MarxLeninFanaticSectarianVladimir LeninBolshevik
Book:Revolution Why, How, When?
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“There's a certain amount of ambiguity in my background, what with intermarriages and conversions, but under various readings of three codes which I don’t much respect (Mosaic Law, the Nuremberg Laws, and the Israeli Law of Return) I do qualify as a member of the tribe, and any denial of that in my family has ceased with me. But I would not remove myself to Israel if it meant the continuing expropriation of another people, and if anti-Jewish fascism comes again to the Christian world—or more probably comes at us via the Muslim world—I already consider it an obligation to resist it wherever I live. I would detest myself if I fled from it in any direction. Leo Strauss was right. The Jews will not be 'saved' or 'redeemed.' (Cheer up: neither will anyone else.) They/we will always be in exile whether they are in the greater Jerusalem area or not, and this in some ways is as it should be. They are, or we are, as a friend of Victor Klemperer's once put it to him in a very dark time, condemned and privileged to be 'a seismic people.' A critical register of the general health of civilization is the status of 'the Jewish question.' No insurance policy has ever been devised that can or will cover this risk.”

ChristianityAtheismIslamIsraelRedemptionHonourFascismExileAmbiguityCivilisationAncestryJerusalemChristiansChristendomMuslimsAntisemitismIsraeli Palestinian ConflictJewish QuestionMosaic LawLeo StraussReligious ConversionsLaw Of ReturnNuremberg LawsIntermarriagesVictor Klemperer
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“A Sweet Woman from a War-Torn Country” In her exile, they often describe her as that ‘sweet woman from a war-torn country.’ They don’t know she loved smelling roses, picking spring wildflowers, and bringing them home after long walks. They don’t know about the first kiss her lover stole during a church power outage on that Easter evening— before the generators came on. They don’t know the long hours she spent under the ancient walnut tree in her village, waiting for her grandfather’s call to share freshly baked pita with ghee and honey. They don’t know about her grandmother’s mixed grains, prepared each year before Easter fasting began. In exile, they try to be kind, telling her she now lives in a ‘safe haven.’ They assume her silence comes from poor language skills or simple agreement with them. They don’t know life’s shocks have silenced her forever. Now she presses her ear against the cold window glass of her apartment, listening to the wind’s mournful cry outside. They remind her she’s among people who honor all values, beliefs, religions, and ethnicities— but she has learned it’s all too late. She no longer needs assurances. Occasionally, all she asks for is a sincere hand on her shoulder or around her neck, to remind her that nothing lasts, that this too shall pass. [Published on April 7, 2023 on CounterPunch.org]”

WarLossSorrowLongingExileAlienationRefugeesArabic PoetryArabic Literature
Author:Louis Yako
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“He actually does know everything by Rumi, too, without the two of us ever having spent time together leafing through the poetry volumes that he bought me for our engagement, though that was what I always wanted us to do. I wanted to share it with him, the rustle of the pages, the effect of every word, and now I'm the one who doesn't dare pick up the books, fearing that they might have lost their power somewhere between Tehran, Istanbul, East Berlin, and here.”

PoetryPoliticsFreedomExileRumi
Book:The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran
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“My idle dreams of leaving behind what I was already doing professionally in order to study, to direct films, or to write receded with the shock of prison and exile. I simply lacked the strength even to adumbrate an act of will. The bell that had rung as I was falling asleep that morning the police had come to take me away had so deeply left its mark that I was still trembling at the sound of the doorbell in Chelsea. So it was impossible for me to dare do anything I might wish. And insofar as there was growing receptivity to what I did among my fellow professionals in London, a simple instinct for survival bound me to the activity in which I was already installed. I would stay home listening to Gil play, at times playing myself, watching television, reading, and above all conversing with people who came by. I was always chatty, but my happiness did not last even until my head hit the pillow. There was always something to feel ashamed of. And I didn't know how to get out of this.”

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Book:Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil
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“Spices" The scents of spices are sad whether at home or in foreign lands ... At home, they passes through the nose to give a ray of hope, a breathing space that make us forget – albeit for a short while – all about the chains of religions, gossip, the absurdity of politics, and the cruelty of the ruling classes … At home, spices help us cope with the heavy weight of the backbreaking customs and traditions … You see everyone excited to have a meal that help them forget about the hardships, the crises, and the unsuitability of life at home … In alienating foreign lands, The scent of spices awakens everything that was lost, including the lost lands and homes… There is something unbearably sad about the image of a woman Standing in a kitchen filled with scents of spices reminding her of all that happened, all that was possible, all that should never have happened, and of all the irreplaceable losses … So many are the societies that have been completely destroyed, and of which nothing remains but scents of spices that add flavor to foods and marinate the wounds … Could spices be like old songs? We love them at home because they touch wounds we wish we could heal from, the same old songs break our hearts in foreign lands, because by then we have finally learned that exile doesn’t heal wounds, but rather pushes the knife deeper into them … And like the alienating foreign lands, the scents of spices declare that there is much more to the story of the wound; a story that kills if untold, and doesn’t heal when narrated … [Original poem published in Arabic on December 11, 2023 at ahewar.org]”

CultureLossDestructionExileAlienationSpicesScentsArabic PoetryDisplacementForeign Lands
Author:Louis Yako
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“The story always starts in the same way when people ask me the simple, yet most difficult question to answer: “where are you from?” I often wonder why of all questions people start with this one that has become the hardest for me and countless other exiled people to answer. The question is especially hard when asked in crowded and fast-paced places, or during quick encounters which make a short answer inadequate and a long one potentially uncalled for…I thought to myself: why is it that the first thing people want to know about me is where I am from? If they only knew where I am from, they would perhaps know that where I am from—Iraq—happens to also be the deepest wound on the geography of my body and soul, and so they would tread gently on my wound by not asking that question in the first place. Is there something in my eyes, something written on my forehead, something in my looks, or some marks inscribed on my other body parts that immediately tell people that I am from a place that lost itself and lost me to exile on a cold, dark, and sad winter night? Why don’t these strangers just start with the more common and safer usual remarks about the weather being nice, dreadful, or whatever? Of all questions, “where are you from,” is the most delicate and complicated for people who have lost their home and all the things they loved.”

LossRacismImmigrationBelongingExileAlienationRefugeesRacial ProfilingOriginProfiling
Author:Louis Yako
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