Quotes By Author: Jessica Khoury

“Time has a different meaning for me, and these events that seem so monumental in the moment will one day be nothing more than a line in a scroll. These humans are but letters to be inked into history. A hundred years from now, I will be free. I will have forgotten their names and faces, and the struggles they have will not matter. Time has a way of burying things, shifting like the desert and swallowing entire civilizations, erasing them from map and memory. Always, in the end, everything returns to dust.”

“We were too greedy, grasping for immortality too soon. Perhaps if we had only been patient, content to wait, we would all have forever in the end.”

“But what I must admit is that I do understand the insanity that drives humans to chase happiness they will never grasp. Because I feel it too, Habiba. Every time I try to pull away, I find myself drawn back to him.”

“Love is a path lined with roses,” I say bitterly. “But it leads to a cliff’s edge, and all who follow it tumble to their doom. You will not find your happiness there.””Then what does bring happiness, Zahra?” he asks harshly, rising to his feet. “Tell me. In four thousand years, have you unlocked that secret?”

“Remember, Pia,” he whispers. “Perfect is as perfect does.”

“And we remember that there must be a balance. No birth without death. No life without tears. What is taken from the world must be given back, and from him who takes and does not give back, who would tip the balance of the river, from him all will be taken. No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live. And so it goes.”