It seems that the whole world is beginning to decay, and that its putrefaction has chosen to spread outward from here, from the land of the Pashtuns, where desertification proceeds at a steady, implacable crawl even in the consciences and intellects of men.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the gradual moral and environmental decline in society, particularly in the Pashtun region.
Yasmina Khadra's quote highlights a deep concern for the deteriorating state of the world, beginning with the Pashtun land where environmental degradation and moral decay are inextricably linked. It suggests that such decay not only affects the physical landscape through desertification but also permeates the minds and values of individuals, leading to a widespread loss of integrity and purpose.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech addressing environmental issues to emphasize the interconnectedness of nature and human morality.
If you want your life to be a small part of eternity, to be lucid even in the heart of madness, love... Love with all your strength, love as though it is all you know how to do, love enough to make the gods themselves jealous... for it is in love that all ugliness reveals its beauty.
Life is a train that stops at no stations; you either jump abroad or stand on the platform and watch as it passes.
You can know all there is to know about life and mankind, but what do you really know about yourself?
That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship to formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of beauty and truth: these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature.
This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.
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