Musings Quotes

“Are the Trials starting?” The girl claps her hands over her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I—”

“It's all right.” I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. “I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?”

“S-slave-Girl.” Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.

“Right. You work for the Commandant?” I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body parts.

But the girl nods in response to my question. Don't let my mother break you, I think. The girl meets my eyes, and there is that feeling again, low and hot and consuming. Don't be weak. Fight. Escape.

A gust of wind whips a strand free from her bun and across her cheekbone. Defiance flashes across her face as she holds my gaze, and for a second, I see my own desire for freedom mirrored, intensified in her eyes. It's something I've never detected in the eyes of a fellow student, let alone a Scholar slave. For one strange moment, I feel less alone.

But then she looks down, and I wonder at my own naiveté. She can't fight. She can't scape. Not from Blackcliff. I smile joylessly; in this, at least, the slave and I are more similar than she'll ever know.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless.”
― Albert Camus

“Look at
how deeply flawed
we are

and yet
capable of loving
so perfectly.”
― Sanober Khan

“As the sun sets, something in me rises! Do you think it could be my soul? I feel it's a big probability!”
― Jasleen Kaur Gumber

“A shape across space beckoned her. Her spirits sank. She thought of the other world; the temporariness of this existence. Oh! The wall, a cold wall stood between this Emma and that; this stormy morning and the sprightly spring afternoon. She walked along the solid wall for an opening. There were no exits. None at all. The sky cracked up into terrifying thunder sounds.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“Never on painter's canvas lives
The charm of his fancy's dream.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

“For the entire history of humanity, we have stared into fires, hypnotized by the twitch and flow of the blues and yellows. We see the stars of alien skies reflected in the coals and divine messages in the dance of the flames. Fire is magic.”
― Lance Conrad, The Price of Loyalty

“...Life does not follow the continuous flow of logical argument and that one often has to risk moving beyond the limits of the rational in order to live life to the fullest.”
― Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction

“Astrology is for those bored by astronomy, but fascinated with themselves.”
― William Least Heat-Moon, Celestial Mechanics: A Tale for a Mid-Winter Night

“A man in his early prime contemplates on life, shattered by the distortions of society he gazes ahead in time. There were vows of happiness and fairy tale beginnings. Now there is nothing of that sort; now there is nothing that started the tales so bright. It's after all this while that he understands why fairy tales begin with 'once upon a time'...”
― Adhish Mazumder

“More often than not- Life moves really fast! It's only for you to pause and breathe! Sadly, none else can do that for you!”
― Jasleen Kaur Gumber

“The clock of time is a wild child, one that can neither be controlled nor disciplined, it simply slips away from your hand while you grapple trying to hold it back.”
― Priyansha Vashi

“Oh, e-books, there are things about us humans you’ll never understand. Sometimes we need something gorgeous to hold in our hands.”
― Ann Patchett

“Who could say what went on, at sunrise, in the thick woods below the planet-searching dome of the Observatory, which saw only space and stars?”
― Tanith Lee, The Book of the Damned

“If you take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so.”
― William Thackeray

“I fall into those gaps sometimes.
You know, the gaps that open up in between thoughts.
I reach out for the walls. Every time. And I grasp at emptiness…
The gaps don’t have walls. You don’t need walls to climb out.
You don’t need a matchstick either;
light only makes your shadows look frightening.
You only need to search the darkness
for the old face, carbon paper and a white mask.”
― Arindam Mallick, Prelude to the Horizon

“I do not have a problem with people killing themselves, as long as they took at least a hundred years to think about what they are about to do.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Lovers moon and wishing stars are too busy for the likes of us.”
― Jake. H. Khiangte

“No living creature should have to feel so exposed in death, washed up on the beach in mangled meat of bloody distortion.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“The lightbulb in my bathroom has blown [...] at night it's dark there in a really weird way, I can stand for ages looking at everything in there, the towels hanging from the hooks, the toothbrush in the glass, the toothpaste, the razor, the shower curtain, and it's like I'm not in the room, like I shouldn't be there, like I'm seeing things how they are when I'm not there, do you understand what I mean? And that I shouldn't be, that somehow I'm a hindrance, but that's almost why I stay there.”
― Gunnhild Øyehaug, Knots: Stories

“So, I resolved to walk the path of memories. Often memories are small lessons, teaching you about virtue, friendship, and longsuffering.”
― Tori Easter, Max Lightning and the Historic Mystery

“True Thomas who never once warned us that we should beware the truth.”
― Leenna Naidoo

“Wind is on fire" - beautiful words. What causes the fire, what enhances it, and what finally extinguishes it by itself or by bringing in rainclouds, gets identified with it. Do breath and life have the same relationship with each other!”
― R. N. Prasher

“I leave in the search of you
at the flourish of midnight every day…
when the fire inside is stoked by the mania of solitude,
and the blood declines to hold the insanity at bay.”
― Arindam Mallick, Prelude to the Horizon

“I write and read so that I can escape reality, for it is unkind.”
― Mikaela A. Ingram

“In my mind I compared Elen and Vintel. Next to Elen, Vintel appeared to be no more than a simpleminded blunderer, yet the grief she had caused, the harm she'd done, we as hideous as Elen's wicked deeds. Perhaps stupidity is as dangerous as evil.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Down by the stream, Rose gathered many unknown little flowers and twigs. Nearby haystacks at the centre of the barn, nothing stirred: nt even a piece of straw fell out of place. Emma dived deep into the pond. The water of the pond imparted a greenish tinge on her floating body,”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“Their eyes wide open, they stared into empty nothingness. There was silence everywhere. Apart from a few twinkling of stars, masses of dark void pressed down upon the atmosphere. Moments passed slowly. She could not sleep a wink. A pale light peeled the darkness off. She felt she was in slumber-land; a land of the living dead - then thoughts returned: an anguish; life appeared to be too short; it melted away so easily into bleak oblivion. She felt that she passed through space, a path designated by ethereal time. Her spirits soared like a falcon...despaired...and more...it fell into a dungeon of dark depression. Laying there. like a fallen log of a dead pine, she heard from her bed a roaring noise of the westerly knocking on the shutters of the window. It was like an ancient calling of Nemesis to wake her up to the fact that surely an end was closing in.”
― Mehreen Ahmed, The Pacifist

“With the decline of the United States as the world’s leader, I find it important to look around our globe for intelligent people who have the depth of understanding that could perhaps chart a way to the future. One such person is Bernard-Henri Lévy a French philosopher who was born in Béni Saf, French Algeria on November 5, 1948. . The Boston Globe has said that he is "perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today." Although his published work and political activism has fueled controversies, he invokes thought provoking insight into today’s controversial world and national views.

As a young man and Zionist he was a war correspondent for “Combat” newspaper for the French Underground. Following the war Bernard attended Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and in 1968; he graduated with a degree in philosophy from the famous École Normale Supérieure. This was followed by him traveling to India where he joined the International Brigade to aid Bangladeshi freedom fighters.

Returning to Paris, Bernard founded the ‘New Philosophers School.’ At that time he wrote books bringing to light the dark side of French history. Although some of his books were criticized for their journalistic character and unbalanced approach to French history, but most respected French academics took a serious look at his position that Marxism was inherently corrupt. Some of his musings include the predicament of the Kurds and the Shame of Aleppo, referring to the plight of the children in Aleppo during the bloody Syrian civil war. Not everyone agrees with Bernard, as pointed out by an article “Why Does Everyone Hate Bernard-Henri Lévy?” However he is credited with nearly single handedly toppling Muammar Gaddafi. His reward was that in 2008 he was targeted for assassination by a Belgium-based Islamist militant group.

Looking like a rock star and ladies man, with his signature dark suits and unbuttoned white shirt, he said that “democracies are not run by the truth,” and notes that the American president is not the author of the anti-intellectual movement it, but rather its product. He added that the anti-intellectualism movement that has swept the United States and Europe in the last 12 months has been a long time coming. The responsibility to support verified information and not publicize fake news as equal has been ignored. He said that the president may be the heart of the anti-intellectual movement, but social media is the mechanism! Not everyone agrees with Bernard; however his views require our attention. If we are to preserve our democracy we have to look at the big picture and let go of some of our partisan thinking. We can still save our democracy, but only if we become patriots instead of partisans!”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Salty & Saucy Maine"

“Sometimes, whether a man lived or died was down to luck. He did not know if that realization made him value his own life more or less. If death could come because you chose the wrong door leading out into the sun, perhaps there was no sense to any of it - just the fifth horseman. He shrugged, putting such thoughts aside.”
― Conn Iggulden, Bloodline