The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity,

Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully.

Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.

Coincidence and intention are two sides of a tapestry, my lord. You may find one more agreeable to look at, but you cannot say one is true and the other is false.

Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything.

men of experience say, "Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

like infernal fire, grief burns but does not consume; instead, it makes the heart vulnerable to further suffering.

it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.

The pleasure you give is returned in the pleasure you receive.

I would be honored to relate everything I know of the future, if Your Majesty sees fit to ask, but for myself, the most precious knowledge I possess is this: Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough. It has long been said that air (which others call argon) is the source of life.

Fate laughs at men’s schemes.

He waved his hand. “I do not sell passage through the Gate,” he said. “Allah guides whom he wishes to my shop, and I am content to be an instrument of his will.

for like infernal fire, grief burns but does not consume; instead, it makes the heart vulnerable to further suffering.

It is said that repentance and atonement erase the past.

Do you now understand why I say the future and the past are the same? We cannot change either, but we can know both more fully.

Nada borra el pasado. Existe el arrepentimiento, existe la enmienda, y existe el perdón. No hay más, pero con eso basta.

it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.

I realize now that, even though the past isunchangeable, one may encounter the unexpected when visiting it.

Si nuestras vidas son cuentos que cuenta Alá, entonces somos la audiencia y los protagonistas al mismo tiempo, y es a fuerza de vivir esos cuentos como recibimos nuestras enseñanzas.

He offered an explanation, speaking of his search for tiny pores in the skin of reality, like the holes that worms bore into wood, and how upon finding one he was able to expand and stretch it the way a glassblower turns a dollop of molten glass into a long-necked pipe, and how he then allowed time to flow like water at one mouth while causing it to thicken like syrup at the other.

infernal fire, grief burns but does not consume; instead, it makes the heart vulnerable to further suffering.

Just as we grow to understand the purpose of customs that seemed pointless to us in our youth,

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity

Hassan stared at the boy for a long moment, and then his anger faded, and he let him go. When next he saw his older self, Hassan asked him, “Why did you not warn me about the pickpocket?” “Did you not enjoy the experience?

I repented and atoned as best I knew how; for twenty years I lived as an upright man, I offered prayers and fasted and gave alms to those less fortunate and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and yet I was still haunted by guilt. Allah is all-merciful, so I knew the failing to be mine.

I spoke to a mullah about what I had done, and it was he who told me that repentance and atonement erase the past.