Top 40 Zoulfa Katouh Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “We don’t have to stop living because we might die.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

2. “Death is an excellent teacher.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

3. “With all the destruction happening down there, it’s so easy to forget the beauty that’s up here. The sky is so beautiful after rainfall.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

4. “Every lemon will bring forth a child, and the lemons will never die out.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

5. “He and I are owed a love story that doesn’t end in tragedy.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

6. “Might. What a word. It holds infinite possibilities of a life that could have been. So many options stacked one on top of the other, like cards waiting for a player to pick and choose.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

7. “Salama, you’ve done everything. The rest is up to God. To fate. If you’re meant to be in Munich, you will be, even if the whole military rips this place apart. And if you’re not, then not even a private plane landing in the middle of Freedom Square to whisk you away will do that.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

8. “She grins and links her hand through mine. “That right there,′ she whispers. “I want you to hold on to that. No matter what happens, you remember that this world is more than the agony it contains. We can have happiness, Salama. Maybe it doesn’t come in a cookie-cutter format, but we will take the fragments and we will rebuild it.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

9. “We weave distractions between the bouts of agony.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

10. “It reminds me that as long as the lemon trees grow, hope will never die.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

11. “I want my mama. I want her to soothe away my sadness and kiss me while calling me ya omri and te’eburenee. My life and bury me.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

12. “Bury me before I bury you” I did.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

13. “It doesn’t hurt for you to think about your future. We don’t have to stop living because we might die. Anyone might die at any given moment, anywhere in the world. We’re not an exception. We just see death more regularly than they do.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

14. “Survivor’s skin is a remorse we are cursed to wear forever.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

15. “Empires have collapsed throughout history. They rise, they build, and they fall. Nothing lasts forever. Not even our pain.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

16. “Takdir memang memiliki sulur-sulur benangnya, tetapi kitalah yang merajutnya dengan tindakan dan pilihan kita. Keimananku pada takdir tidak membuatku pasif.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

17. “Don’t focus on the darkness and sadness,”... “If you do, you won’t see the light even if it’s staring you in the face.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

18. “We are stripped from our choices, so we latch onto what will ensure our survival.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

19. “You asked me if you could see colours again, Salama. If we deserve to see them. I think we do. I think you can. There’s too little of it in death. In pain. But that’s not the only thing in the world. That’s not all that Syria has. Syria was once the center of the world. Inventions and discoveries were made here; they built the world. Our history is in the Al-Zahrawi Palace, in our mosques, in our earth.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

20. “Fear is a cruel thing. The way it distorts thoughts, transforming them from molehills into mountains.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

21. “This is the land of your father, and his father before him. Your history is embedded in this soil. No country in the world will love you as yours does.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

22. “I finally realize that this boy with the old sweater and the disheveled brown hair who wears his heart on his sleeve is beautiful.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

23. “I nod and hold on to this moment, tucking it in my heart to revisit when the sadness comes back.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

24. “There are enough people hurting you,” he whispers. “Don’t be one of them.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

25. “I’m exhausted,” I whisper. “Me too,” Kenan replies. I shake my head. “No. I’m exhausted from all of this. I’m exhausted we’re suffocating and no one gives the slightest bit of a damn. I’m exhausted we’re not even an afterthought. I’m exhausted we can’t even have basic human rights. I’m exhausted, Kenan.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

26. “As an artist, I’m a student of life. Humor me, Salama.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

27. “For every life I can’t save during my shift, one more drop of blood becomes a part of me. No matter how many times I wash my hands, our martyrs’ blood seeps beneath my skin, into my cells. By now it’s probably encoded in my DNA.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

28. “The most beautiful sunsets are always the ones that come after a rain.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

29. “Time is the best medicine to turn our bleeding wounds to scars, and our bodies might forget the trauma, our eyes might learn to see colours as they should be seen, but the cure doesn’t extend to our souls.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

30. “There’s an honest joy in his voice, but for the first time tonight, I can see his real face behind the fragments he’s had to glue back together over and over again.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

31. “We held our heads high and planted lemon trees in acts of defiance, praying that when they came for us, it’d be a bullet to the head. Because that was far more merciful than what awaited in the bowels of their prison system.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

32. “Prayers are answered when rain falls,” she reminds me.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

33. “I catch it before it disappears and fold it into my heart to replay later when I’m alone.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

34. “I love you too.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

35. “The world is not sweet or kind. The ones outside are waiting to eat us and pick their teeth with our bones. That’s what they’ll do to your siblings. So we do everything to make sure we and our loved ones survive. Whatever it takes.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

36. “When I die, I’m going to tell God everything.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

37. “No matter what happens, you remember that this world is more than the agony it contains. We can have happiness, Salama. Maybe it doesn’t come in a cookie-cutter format, but we will take the fragments and we will rebuild it.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

38. “And to all the Syrians who loved, lost, lived, and died for Syria. We will come back home one day.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

39. “I won’t let them own my fears.”

— Zoulfa Katouh

40. “You see the military beating people up in the streets, dragging them away and murdering them, and you see your kid siblings trying to warm themselves at night, and you think it can’t get any worse. But this, Salama, this is where hope dies. The fact they don’t know what’s going on because how could they? They’re babies. They’re just babies.”

— Zoulfa Katouh