Kamand Kojouri Quotes

We reveal most about ourselves when we speak about others.

I long for the day when I hear the musicwithout any song.

I open my eyes. I want to know:what is in the abyss of a kiss? Are stars born in these black caves that house bated breaths and unspoken words? Do our souls crawl on these tender cheeks to greet one another by ivory gates? What happens when we kiss?Where do you go?Don’t tell me. For I have lost my desire to know. Kiss me so that I forget myself. I close my eyes and fall in the abyss.

I write because the security of your love allows me to develop my craft without concerning myself with trivialities — as if your love could be any more complete. But I write, in the first place,because of you, my muse. I write for your green eyes to glance at my humble words and for the pleasure of hearing you utter them.

You are not who you think.You're not even the thinker.You are the one conscious of the thought.

If you want to find God, then all you need to do is love.

Don’t you ever dare judge, for who among us can say that when the devil himself offered us a deal, we refused?

Our homes travel with us. They are wherever we feel loved and accepted.

I came to pen another poem for you, but even every unwritten poem is you.

What is life? Life is living in this moment, experiencing and experimenting but experience isn’t life. Life is reflecting and meditating but reflection isn’t life. Life is helping and guiding but philanthropy isn’t life. Life is eating and drinking but food isn’t life. Life is reading and dancing but art isn’t life. Life is kissing and pleasuring but sex isn’t life. Life is winning and losing but competition isn’t life. Life is loving and caring but love isn’t life. Life is birthing and nurturing but children aren’t life. Life is letting go and surrendering but death isn’t life. Life is all these things but all these things aren’t life. Life is always more.

Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.

This is a day of celebration!Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present.Dance,and you will find Godin every room.Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness.Sing,and God will find you in every tune.Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love.Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs.We have so much celebrating to do!

The hardest thing in the world is to let go of who you once thought you were and to manifest your true self, at the risk of being unloved. This is self-actualization.

When you get shy, you’re simply thinking of yourself. Stop it. Step out of yourself.

I haven’t written you a poem in years it seems.How can it be my faultwhen the words to describe you have not yet been created?When the alphabet lacks the very letters?How can it be my fault when your loveliness only growsby the time I reach for pen and paper?Tell me how I am at faultwhen I am only a beginner in poemsand you are exquisite poetry?To write you in words is to put a veil upon you.Why must I writewhen I can kiss you instead?

Love, they said, burns youand builds you.But with you, there’s no ash.Just light.

Disappointment is a blessing. If you were never disappointed, you'd never know what was important to you.

May we always be burdened with thinking of the suffering of others, for that is what it means to be human.

Wonderment shared is doubled.Love shared is infinite.

I couldn’t have dreamed you into existence because I didn’t even know I needed you. You must have been sent to me.

I am going to build a fortress of books.Will you come inside and live with me?

Don’t worry if you don’t accomplish everything in this life. Fortunately, death overcomes every thing—even the very thing that tried to kill us.

Think the tree that bears nutrition:though the fruits are picked, the plant maintains fruition.So give all the love you have.Do not hold any in reserve.What is given is not lost; it shall return.

It’s so easy to lose faith and become lost in all of the politics of the world. That’s why we need the arts. To sublimate our frustration and anger into something beautiful. Freud called sublimation a virtuous defence mechanism because it is in the arts that we can find our humanity.

I don’t know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani’sdulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children’s cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we’re doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?

Don’t say to yourself, ‘Everyone argues!’ to justify and normalise your fighting, when the most natural thing is to love.

We call a story about love a love story. We call a poem about love a love poem. Well then, my dear, aren’t our lives love lives?

The more we surrender to what cannot be, the better we control what can be.

How freeing of a thought: instead of worrying about leaving a legacy, to leave no trace of one's existence. How liberating indeed!

The closest thing to perfection is imperfection

The guilt you felt when you were smiling and others were suffering, the guilt you felt when you were petty with friends and impatient with your parents, when you were rude to your teachers and didn’t stand up for strangers, that guilt is marvellous. It proves that you are human, that you want to be better. Thank this guilt for teaching you, for making you aware. And now endeavour to better yourself. It is a lifelong work to become the person we want to be.

What is this lovethat makes me see beauty,and makes every beautiful thing bring you back to me?What is this lovethat makes me declare 'I love you'even though I uttered itonly a moment ago?What is this love that keeps growing even when my chest is soreand it hurts to love you any more?Tell me:How am I to find what this love iswhen it was the one to find you, me, this verse, and this universe?

Let my silence grow with noise as pregnant mothers grow with life. Let my silence permeate these walls as sunlight permeates a home. Let the silence rise from unwatered graves and craters left by bombs. Let the silence rise from empty bellies and surge from broken hearts. The silence of the hidden and forgotten. The silence of the abused and tortured. The silence of the persecuted and imprisoned. The silence of the hanged and massacred. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so the hungry may eat my words and the poor may wear my words. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so I may resurrect the dead and give voice to the oppressed. My silence speaks.

Let us go where skins are rainbowsEnhanced by every hue.Where genders are cloudsWeightless and formless through.Let us go where creeds are starsIlluminating our view.Where men and women are oneAnd the in-between are true.Let us go where I am free to loveFor I cannot unlove you.

Before you, nothing.Now you, and everything

Come back to me.Where have you gone?And why so long?I miss the star below your lip,the constellation on your chest.I miss your ways,how you net butter-flying words and release themfor others to enjoy.I miss your tenderness,the sweetness of your breathand the song of your voice.I miss howyou worship me.Come back to me once more.Why did you go?And whatever for?The heavens plotted against us.The clouds came andpissed on our lives.The smell of charged particlesstill lingers in the air.What will become of you and I?Come back to us.

As soon as we are born we hide God in ourselves.We then spend our lives looking for Himwhen all along, He has been concealed behind the veil of 'I'.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

We are all lost, so lost, vulnerable and insecure. We are separated from love at birth, we are separated from God, from each other. All we want, all we yearn for is to connect.

I am so tired. I have grown old from being serious. I have grown ill from being serious. I want to laugh at myself. I want to forget myself. I am so tired.

The greatest thinkers have attempted to find who we are where we come from and why we are here but the greatest enigmas to me are how your hair is a lasso that captures the stars how your eyes are lakes that drown my doubts and how your skin is the sun bursting all at once. If I knew these answers I’d know everything for you alone contain the entire universe.

What can I tell you about the alchemy of twins?Twins are two bodies that dance to each other’s joy.Two minds that drownin each other’s despair.Two spirits that flywith each other’s love.Twins are two separate beingsconjoined at the heart!

I know you not quite wellYet I foolishly surrender my mind to you. Slowly and carefully you have cast a spellNow my virgin heart only longs for you. There is no need to push, I am already falling. Once proudly tall, I’m no longer standing. Knowing well that I am doomed to misery,I will roll the dice and take delight in my suffering.

I have become intoxicated again.You are such a potent wine, my friend.To escape your withdrawal effects,tomorrow I will drink in excess.Alas, why make me love?I was aware, conscious, and sensible before.I am ill by cause of this illusion.The devil plays tricks on me more and more.I was a harp you immaculately plucked at will.Your score, the nightingale song withinnotes composed to imprison and bear me wings.Oh, if only they could hear how it sings!I am now beyond parched.My strings left untouched.You are no longer an oasis, my friend,but a mirage soon coming to an end.

The best traveler is one without a camera.

I don’t want to be remembered for my work. I want to be remembered for my love.

Your love opened up a whole world that no amount of books or wisdom could ever do.

This poem was meant to be unwritten. But I am writing it now and have thereby changed destiny.

What is the point of a relationship if not to grant two people the very private privilege to uplift one another every day?

You must have hope in a better future and have faith in this hope. But then you must forget your hope and focus on this moment now.

For how can any human be separate from humanity and humanness?

I love you.I love you a thousand times.I love you an irrational number. And I will continue to love youlong after all this has died and been rebornand we are nothing more than a pair of reincarnated eyes.

For all these stars,nothing is new.They’ve seen all kinds of warsand miracles, too.They know the messengers with their holy bookswill smile and wash their hands in blood.They know the politicians with their good lookswill make the poor eat pies of mud.They’ve seen the Earth freeze and then burn with greed.They’ve seen the treesand the seas emptied.Yet, you won’t hear their sneerswhen a man arrivesand, having experienced a number of years,proclaims: 'I have lived!'Because nothing is new under these stars:the lies, the love, the memories and scars, the ruin, the revolution, the fakes and true,the families, the friends, none of it is new.All of it—even the me and you.

I was so blessed. The first person I gave my heart to was an angel who plucked the feathers off his wings and built a nest for it.

Love without conditions, restrictions, or the expectation of being loved in return.

Do not avert your eyes.It is important that you see this.It is important that you feelthis.

One sip of this wine and you will go mad with drunkenness. You will drop your masks and tear your clothes — destroying everything that separates you from the Lover. Once you taste the fruit of this vine, you will be kicked out of the city of yourself. You will forget the world. You will forget yourself. I tell you: you will become a madman who wanders the streets looking for the Lover once you drink this Wine of Love.

I became an artist because I wanted to be an active participant in the conversation about art.

Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.

If all we had were roses, would the thorns then be beautiful?