“Once through this ruined city did I pass
I espied a lonely bird on a bough and asked
‘What knowest thou of this wilderness?’
It replied: 'I can sum it up in two words:
‘Alas, Alas!”
Source: Delhi
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Khushwant Singh 39
Indian novelist and journalist 1915–2014Related quotes

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
FitzGerald's first edition (1859)
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:
The three make heaven for me; it may be thine
Is some sour place of singing cold and bare —
But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.
As translated by Richard Le Gallienne (1897)
Give me a flagon of red wine, a book of verses, a loaf of bread, and a little idleness. If with such store I might sit by thy dear side in some lonely place, I should deem myself happier than a king in his kingdom.
As translated by Justin McCarthy (1888).
The Rubaiyat (1120)

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
FitzGerald's first edition (1859).
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

“I sing as the bird sings
That lives in the boughs.”
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt
Der in den Zweigen wohnet.
Bk. II, Ch. 11
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)
Said shortly afterwards during the trial.
Source: http://www.abc.es/20081104/opinion-firmas/mataron-munoz-seca-20081104.html

“Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams,
Words!”
Hélas! tout est abîme, — action, désir, rêve,
Parole!
"Le Gouffre" [The Abyss], Nouvelles Fleurs du Mal (1862) http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Gouffre
"Nothingness" [Hư vô], as quoted in "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in 20th-Century Vietnam" by Neil Jamieson, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992, p. 87, and in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), p. 162

“The work of a director can be summed up in two very simple words. Why and How.”
[Brook, Peter, On Directing, 1999, Faber and Faber ltd, London, England, English, 0-571-19149-5, ix (Foreword)]