Words have always fascinated me. The right words can find us at different moments in our lives and mean something entirely different each time. I believe there is a beautiful, meaningful, powerful way of reading, writing, and using words.
For over twenty years, I have collected quotes that have made me laugh, question, wonder, and sometimes weep. I kept them in what I called my Book of Quotes, returning to them whenever I needed perspective or wanted to borrow a little wisdom from someone else's experience. But the inspiration for this book goes back much further.
Growing up in a Persian household, I was fascinated by an ancient Persian tradition known as Fal-e Hafez, the practice of turning to the poetry of Hafez for guidance and wisdom. When faced with a dilemma or searching for answers, one would open a book of Hafez's poetry at random, believing the words on that page held a message they were meant to hear at that particular moment.
My mother would often do this, and there was something about the peace, beauty, and mysticism of that ritual that always fascinated me. But my Persian reading wasn't advanced enough to fully appreciate or understand such poetry, so I decided to create a version of my own.
In college, I started collecting quotes that spoke to my soul. This was before Google, Pinterest, and Instagram made inspirational quotes so easily accessible. Back then, you stumbled upon them in books, poems, speeches, or the lyrics of your favorite songs. And whenever I came across words that moved me, I would write them down.
Over the next twenty years, I filled the pages of my book with wisdom from people far wiser than me. Words that challenged my thinking, shifted my perspective, and sometimes led me down unexpected paths.
It became my own little book of secrets. A collection of truths, lessons, and wisdom that had quietly shaped my journey.
My Book of Quotes became the book I reached for whenever I needed perspective. I would open its pages and find words I had collected years earlier, sometimes discovering that a sentence meant something entirely different to me now than it had when I first wrote it down.
Maybe that's the beautiful thing about words. They stay the same. We don't.
There was always something comforting about finding words for something I had felt but hadn't yet known how to articulate. Sometimes a single sentence could make me see something differently. And perhaps that's why writing eventually became such an important part of my own life.
I started writing during cancer because I needed somewhere to put everything I was thinking. At first, writing was simply a way to process what was happening. My mind needed somewhere to go during the sleepless nights. I needed a place for the fear, the questions, and the thoughts I wasn't always ready to say out loud.
I wasn't trying to make meaning out of what was happening. I was simply trying to make sense of it. But over time, my writing began to change. It became less about what had happened to me and more about what those experiences were changing in me.
The more I wrote, the more I began noticing things I hadn't noticed before. How differently I thought about time. How much less interested I was in proving myself. How deeply I valued ordinary moments with my family. How gratitude could exist alongside grief. How perspective could change an experience without pretending the experience itself was good.
I began to understand that perhaps the most meaningful part of our stories isn't simply what happens to us. It's what happens within us because of them.
For so many years, other people's words had helped me make sense of my own life. And slowly, I began writing down the things my own life was teaching me—not because I had all the answers, but because I had started asking different questions.
Writing became a way of paying attention. Of noticing what an experience had left behind after the moment itself had passed.
Because perhaps we don't always understand our lives while we're busy living them. Sometimes we need enough distance to look back. Sometimes we need enough quiet to listen. And sometimes we need to put words around an experience before we can see what it has been trying to show us.
I still write for many of the same reasons I did during those sleepless nights. Not because I've figured life out, but because writing makes me look more closely at it. And somewhere between the questions and the words, I often discover something I didn't know I was looking for. It gives me the opportunity to reflect. What might you discover about your own life if you gave yourself the space to reflect on it?
August, 2019