Malika Oufkir · 304 pages
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“ان التجربة التي خضتها داخل السجن كانت اغنى ألف مرة من تجارب اخرين خارجه. لقد اختبرت الوجه الاخر للحياة من ألم و خوف و رعب و معاناة و جوع و برد ... تعلمت ماذا ثعني الحياة و ماذا يعني الموت. و تأملت مليا في الخلق و الكون.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“Each day is a miracle that intoxicates me. I want more. I greet every morning like a new pleasure. And yet I am keenly aware of all life's artifices. Getting dressed, wearing make-up, laughing, having fun-isn't all that just playing a role? Am I not more profound, carrying the burden of those twenty years when I 'wasn't alive', than all those who rushed around in vain during that time?”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“I have lost years that I will never get back. Only now am I just beginning to live, on the verge of old age. It is painful and unfair. But today I have a different attitude to life: it can't be constructed from superficial things, no matter how attractive they may appear. Neither wealth not appearances have any importance now.
Pain gave me new life. It took a long time for me to die as Malika, General Oufkir's eldest daughter, the child of a powerful figure, of a past. I've gained an identity. My own identity. And that is priceless.
If there had not been all that waste, all that horror...I'd almost venture to say that my suffering made me grow. In any case, it changed me. for the better. It's as well to make the best of things.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“أني لأرثى لحال هؤلاء البشر الذين يعيشون خارج قضبان السجن ولم تتسنّ لهم الفرصة ليعرفوا القيمة الحقيقية للحياه”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“وماذا يعني الهجران؟
ليس هذا هو كل مايؤلمني ويمزقني. كل شيء يمضي ولايمرّ، إلّا أن يكون عدوك جزءاً لايتجرأ منك. وتلك هي المصيبة والهزيمة.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“فلتسقط الأقنعة .. لم نعد نؤمن بشئ ..!”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“أي طالع أشد سؤآ من أن تكون المرأه في محتمع لا يقدس الا الفحوله وويقود بالعصا قطيع النساء”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“فليرحل ربيع العمر عني .. لا أبالي.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“it will be miraculous, very miraculous.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“الأخوة عاطفة وإحساس وليست فقط عاماً وخبراً”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“One result of turning a blind eye to the horrors of the world, because you can stand only so much, is that you end up forgetting that each individual who is subjected to heinous suffering is your fellow, your equal, and that you could have been in their shoes, and that he or she could one day have become your friend.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“علمني السجن أن الإنسان أقوى من الظلم والقهر والطغيان والحرمان والتعذيب والمستحيل.”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“لم نعرف أثناء احتجازنا في بير جديد ماذا يعني البيض الطبيعي. كانت القشرة الخارجية خضراء اللون, وفي داخلها سائل أسود اللون أيضا تنبعث منه رائحة كريهة تشمئز منها النفس. كنت أضعها في وعاء بعد أن أكسرها, وأتركها طوال الليل لتهوئتها, وفي الصباح كنت أخفقها مع قليل من السكر .أغمس قطع الخبز في المزيج ثم أقلبها بالزيت. وتصبح جاهزة للتوزيع, ما إن تزول الرائحة حتى تعم البهجة والسرور من زنزانة إلى أخرى. مزجها بالخبز أضاع طعمها الرديء إلى حد ما”
― Malika Oufkir, quote from Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
“But life on the road comes at a price. The energy it gives, the freedom you feel, it takes away, and more—twenty-six weeks a season, eighty games, from bus to plane to bus to hotel to bus to arena to bus to plane, to a leagueful of cities three times a week. A rhythm like any other rhythm, it is one you get used to; except this one is always changing and you never do. Like a skillful runner in a distance race, it sets the pace and plays with you; going slower than you want it to, speeding up before you are ready, gradually wearing you down, until after four games in five nights in four different cities, you are weak and vulnerable, and it sprints away from you.”
― Ken Dryden, quote from The Game
“As she uttered the words of the prayer, she glanced up at him as if he were God Himself. He watched her with growing pleasure. In front of him was kneeling the directress, being humiliated by a subordinate; in front of him a naked revolutionary was being humiliated by prayer; in front of him a praying lady was being humiliated by her nakedness.
This threefold image of degradation intoxicated him and something unexpected suddenly happened: his body revoked its passive resistance. Edward was excited!
As the directress said, 'And lead us not into temptation,' he quickly threw off all his clothes. When she said, 'Amen,' he violently lifted her off the floor and dragged her onto the couch.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from Laughable Loves
“There is the darkness of a moonless night out of doors, and there is the darkness of a house with its shutters closed and the lamps quenched. There is the darkness of sleep, relieved by the bright images of dreams But no darkness is as complete, as blanketing, as terrifying as the utter darkness of underground.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Cybele's Secret
“Our code is different from the warrior code. It reaches across boundaries. To us, every cat is simply that — a cat, with the same right to life as any other. We made a promise to heal and protect, remember?”
― Erin Hunter, quote from Night Whispers
“But the long hours of mechanical drudgery were telling on his active body and undisciplined nerves. He had begun too late to subject himself to the persistent mortification of spirit and flesh which is a condition of the average business life; and after the long dull days in the office the evenings at his grandfather's whist-table did not give him the counter-stimulus he needed.”
― Edith Wharton, quote from The Custom of the Country
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