If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.

We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.

Everyone not already following their own path would begin to feel dissatisfied with themselves and be forced to make a choice: they would either have to accept an existence beset with disappointment and pain or else come to realise that everyone was born to be happy. Having made their choice, they would have no option but to change, and the great struggle, the Jihad, would begin.

There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river -- leaves, insects, the feathers of birds -- is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then my pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.

Then she opened her eyes, Veronika did not think 'this must be heaven'. Heaven would never use a fluorescent tube to light a room, and the pain - which started a fraction of a second later - was typical of the Earth. Ah, that Earth pain - unique, unmistakable.

There is such a thing as emotional rubbish; it is produced in the factories of the mind. It consists of pain that has long since passed and is no longer useful. It consists of precautions that were important in the past, but that serve no purpose in the present.

This last week has been a little hell for both of us simply because I didn't understand my own feelings. And because I can't understand them, I blame her for provoking in me feelings that make my world seem suddenly unsafe.

في النهاية، ما السعادة؟ الحب، يقولون لي. لكنّ الحب لا يجلب السعادة و لم يجلبها يوماً. فالحب، على العكس من ذلك! إنه حالة مستمرة من القلق، بل ساحة معركة؛ ليالٍ هجرها النوم، نتساءل فيها إن كان ما نفعله صواباً. الحب الحقيقي مزيج من الانتشاء و الغُصّة.

But why all these questions?Because I'm in love and I'm afraid of suffering.Don't be afraid, the only way to avoid that suffering would be to refuse to love.