"Impossible, I realize, to enter another’s solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known. A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver? Where all is intractable, here all is hermetic and evasive, one can do no more than observe. But whether one can make sense of what he observes is another matter entirely."
— Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude (via 13neighbors)
May 13, 2013. Syrian troops take control of the village of Western Dumayna, some seven kilometers north of the rebel-held city of Qusayr. The butt of one soldier’s rifle shows a portrait of his child.
Joseph Eid
