Quotes from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“أوقعتني الشجاعة في مأزق لم أنجو منه إلا بمزيد من هذه الشجاعة”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“أؤمن بأن هذا الشعب لا يفنى”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“ما هكذا فعل قائدنا أبو ركوة (الوليد بن هشام بن المغيرة) قبل ألف عام. فلما رأى الناس يؤمنون بأن الحاكم بأمر الله يحكم بأمر الله، لم يسقط في يده، ولم ينتظر أن يصبح الشعب مؤهلاً، بل أقنعهم بأنه ثائر عليه هو أيضاً، بأمر الله. فتلقب بالثائر بأمر الله على الحاكم بأمر الله. فحيد العزة بالعزة. والحاكم أظلم. فتبعه خلق كثير.”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“ليس هناك على الأرض أقدس من دم الإنسان، يا بني، ولذلك سمّيت بلادنا بالمقدّسة.”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“في المدرسة حذرتموني: احترس بكلامك! فلما أخبرتكم أن معلمي صديقي، همستم: لعله عين عليك! ولما سمعت حكاية الطنطورة فلعنتهم، همستم في أذني: احترس بكلامك!
فلما لعنوني:
احترس بكلامك!
وحين اجتمعت بأقراني، لنعلن إضرابا، قالوا لي، هم أيضا:
احترس بكلامك!
وفي الصباح قلتِ لي، يا أماه: إنك تتكلم في منامك، فاحترس بكلامك في منامك!.. وكنت أدندن في الحمام، فصاح بي أبي: غير هذا اللحن. إن للجدران آذانا، فاحترس بكلامك!
أريد ألا أحترس بكلامي، مرة واحدة!
كنت أختنق!
ضيق هذا الكهف يا أمّاه، لكنه أرحب من حياتكم!
مسدود هذا الكهف يا أماه، ولكنه منفذ!”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

Popular quotes

“What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. And there it is... It was death. I chose life.”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from The Hours

“In nature there's no blemish but the mind.
None can be called deformed but the unkind.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Twelfth Night

“I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.”
― Dodie Smith, quote from I Capture the Castle

“He knew that the very memory of the piano falsified still further the perspective in which he saw the elements of music, that the field open to the musician is not a miserable stave of seven notes, but an immeasurable keyboard (still almost entirely unknown) on which, here and there only, separated by the thick darkness of its unexplored tracts, some few among the millions of keys of tenderness, of passion, of courage, of serenity, which compose it, each one differing from all the rest as one universe differs from another, have been discovered by a few great artists who do us the service, when they awaken in us the emotion corresponding to the theme they have discovered, of showing us what richness, what variety lies hidden, unknown to us, in that vast, unfathomed and forbidding night of our soul which we take to be an impenetrable void.”
― Marcel Proust, quote from Swann's Way

“Mama always said barefoot and pregnant was not my style. She knew.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from The Bean Trees

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.