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Death and the Dervish
Meša Selimović
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Bismilahir-rahmanir-rahim! I call to witness the ink, the quill, and the script, which flows from the quill; I call to witness the faltering shadows of the sinking evening, the night and all she enlivens; I call to witness the moon when she waxes, and the sunrise when it dawns. I call to witness the Resurrection Day and the soul that accuses itself; I call to witness time, the beginning and end of all things - to witness that every man always suffers loss.”
“Give me strength to forgive. Because he who forgives is the greatest. And I know I cannot forget.”
“But that’s the point of it all: to come back. To long for someplace else, to leave and to arrive again at the place where you started. If it weren’t for the place that you’re tied to, you wouldn’t want it or any other world, either; you wouldn’t have anywhere to depart from, because you’d be nowhere. And you’re also nowhere if that’s the only place you have. Because then you don’t think about it, long for it, or love it. And that’s not good. You need to think, to long for something, to love.”
“Where’s the sun?” he asked me once. “Behind the clouds.” “Is it always there? Even when it’s cloudy?” “Always.” “Could we see it if we climbed to the top of that poplar?” “No.” “And if we were on a minaret?” “No. The clouds are above the minaret.” “And if a hole was made in the clouds?” Indeed, why don’t people make holes in clouds for boys who love the sun?”
“What is the devotion if there is no temptation which is master on their own? The man is not God and his strength is just in that to suppress its nature, if there is nothing to suppress what's the difference? ”
“Fear is flooding over me, like water. The living know nothing. Teach me, dead ones, how to die without fear, or at least without horror. Because death is senseless, as is life.”
“People in fact talk most often for their own sake, and with a need to hear the echo of their words.”
“I swear on time, which is the beginning and the end of everything, that everybody is always at lost...”
“Death is a certainty, an inevitable realization, the only thing that we know will befall us. There are no exceptions, no surprises: all paths lead to it. Everything we do is a preparation for it, a preparation that we begin at birth, whimpering with our foreheads against the ground. We never move farther away from death, only closer. But if it is a certainty, then why are we surprised when it comes? If this life is a short passage that lasts only an hour or a day, then why do we fight to prolong it one more day or hour? Worldly life is treacherous, eternity is better.3”
“And what never happened always seems beautiful. You are a deception that gives birth to discontent, a deception that I cannot and do not wish to drive away, since it disarms me and protects me from suffering with a quiet grief.”
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