“If something is ugly, it’s likely that it’s only ugly because it’s never been given the opportunity to be beautiful. And never having had that opportunity is likely the ugliest thing of all.”

“Every breath we take from the airTakes oxygen from an insect’s lungs mid-prayerAnd every exhalation does loudly declareThat in the currency of life, we’re millionaires.A butterfly flapped it’s wings and Rome fellA passerby’s whistle cracked the liberty bellAnd I dare urge the daring not to yellLest we so bid a skyscraper a rough farewell.A snake’s tongue slithered and man did sinLet me tell you how the waves from a shark’s finDid set the tides on D-Day and let the allies win;Chance and destiny are identical twins.A word was spoken and the earth createdAnother phrase and the future was dictatedAnd so every action must be carefully weightedWe just never know how things are interrelated.”

“Under a night’s skyFilled with a hundred billion starsIs it so crazy to believeOur paths were destined to cross?”

“عندما نجد الفرصة لتفادي الموت فمن الواجب أن نعيش !”

“I was a slave, but never a fool. This empire is vast beyond imagining and we have killed only a fraction of the force they will bring against us. They will kill us, all of us, for we are slaves and we cannot be allowed even the barest hope of freedom. Without us, they have no empire.”

“Il y a tellement de gens qui se ratent pour de mauvaises raisons. Quel risque y a-t-il à voler un peu de bonheur ?”

“It has been a week since Ami died and this morning I woke suddenly hours before dawn, indeed the same hour as when my mother died. It was not a dream that woke me, but a thought. And with that thought I could swear I heard Ami’s voice. But I am not frightened. I am joyous. Joyous with realization. For I cannot help but think what a lucky person I am. Imagine that in all the eons of time, in all the possible universes of which Dara speaks, of all the stars in the heavens, Ami and I came together for one brief and shining sliver of time. I stop. I think.Supposing in the grand infinity of this universe two particles of life, Ami and me, swirl endlessly like grains of sand in the oceans of the world — how much of a chance is there for these two particles, these two grains of sand, to collide, to rest briefly together… at the same moment in time? That is what happened with Ami and me… this miracle of chance.”

“Little sister don’t you worry about a thing todayTake the heat from the sunLittle sisterI know that everything is not okBut you’re like honey on my tongueTrue love never can be rentBut only true love can keep beauty innocentI could never take a chanceOf losing love to find romanceIn the mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanNo I could never take a chance’Cause I could never understandThe mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanYou can run from loveAnd if it’s really love it will find youCatch you by the heelBut you can’t be numb for loveThe only pain is to feel nothing at allHow can I hurt when I’m holding you?I could never take a chanceOf losing love to find romanceIn the mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanAnd you’re the one, there’s no-one elsewho makes me want to lose myselfIn the mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanBrown eyed girl across the streetOn rue Saint DivineI thought this is the one for meBut she was already mineYou were already mine…Little sisterI’ve been sleeping in the street againLike a stray dogLittle sisterI’ve been trying to feel complete againBut you’re gone and so is GodThe soul needs beauty for a soul mateWhen the soul wants…the soul waits …No I could never take a chanceOf losing love to find romanceIn the mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanFor love and FAITH AND SEX and fearAnd all the things that keep us hereIn the mysterious distanceBetween a man and a womanHow can I hurt when I’m holding you?”

“Most of us are not raised to actively encounter our destiny. We may not know that we have one. As children, we are seldom told we have a place in life that is uniquely ours alone. Instead, we are encouraged to believe that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others, that we will (or should) find our satisfactions as they have found theirs. Rather than being taugh to ask ourselves who we are, we are schooled to ask others. We are, in effect, trained to listen to others’ versions of ourselves. We are brought up in our life as told to us by someone else! When we survey our lives, seeking to fulfill our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the dream was beyond our reach. Many of us would have been, or at least might have been, done, tried something, if…If we had known who we really were.”

“Phaedra keeps saying she’s being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can’t deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his.” “And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?” “Not really, I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance…a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it’s worth it if only once she gets a happy ending.”

“Men and women are not limited by the place of their birth, not by color of their skin, but by the size of their hope.”

“Life, for the living, is a gift of opportunity; an exercise of the will to choose.”

“If you spend your whole life trying to find yourself, you might miss your chance to create the person you’re trying to find.”

“To be happy, without any condition, you should seek the roots of the happiness in internal factors — unconditional happiness means to practice this phenomenon without any spatio-temporal dependency, that is, everywhere and everytime. Unlike external factors, which determine the conditional happiness in a particular spatio-temporal continuum, and which is out of personal control in such a way that a small difference in such a continuum could influence your sense of happiness, internal factors are more likely to be controlled by you, at least to some extent, therefore, are promising a chance to arrange your happiness yourself without any dependence on someone else.”