Aladdin Lamp Quotes

Christian, you are the state lottery, the cure for cancer, and the three wishes from Aladdin's lamp all rolled into one

This is indeed India! "…. The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, whose yesterday’s bear date with the modering antiquities for the rest of nations-the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.

How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the djinn when Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the story.

A writer's thoughts can act as an Aladdin's lamp, which can enlighten and open the mind of a reader, by showing opportunities and beauties of life.

and I look on my brain as a mass of hydraulically compacted thoughts, a bale of ideas, and my head as a smooth, shiny Aladdin's lamp.

Generally speaking, all true children's stories make promises to their readers. Here you are, they say, unhandy and short, and there is a big world that one day will be yours. Listen to how it happened for Cinderella once upon a time, and Jack with his beanstalk, and Aladdin with his lamp.

What I corrupted was what is called the truth in favour of a more marvelous world. I could always improve on the facts. [...] in self-defense, I accuse the writers of fairy-tales. Not hunger, not cruelty, not my parents, but these tales which promised that sleeping in the snow never caused pneumonia, that bread never turned stale, that trees blossomed out of season, that dragons could be killed with courage, that intense wishing would be followed immediately by fulfillment of the wish. Intrepid wishing, said the fairytales, was more effective than labor. The smoke issuing from Aladdin's lamp was my first smokescreen, and the lies learned from fairytales were my first perjuries. Let us say I had perverted tendencies: I believed everything I read.

Palaeontology is the Aladdin's lamp of the most deserted and lifeless regions of the earth; it touches the rocks and there spring forth in orderly succession the monarchs of the past and the ancient river streams and savannahs wherein they flourished. The rocks usually hide their story in the most difficult and inaccessible places.

But wealth isn’t a magic lamp that suddenly erases all your problems,

Christian, you are the state lottery, the cure for cancer, and the three wishes from Aladdin’s lamp all rolled into one.

Sometimes you stay bottled up because you know the responsibility’s in your hands, rubbing you like a lamp, and you’re the only genie that can and must rise and expand in order to grant your every wish.

Consider the millions who are buying those modern Aladdin’s lamps called e-readers. These magical devices, ever more beautiful and nimble in design, have only to be lightly rubbed for the genie of literature to be summoned.

It’s not too late,” he says. “Zahra, I—” “Sh.” I lay a finger across his lips. “Don’t say it. You will marry Caspida, and you will learn to love each other. You will live a happy life, long after my lamp has passed to new hands.” “I won’t make my third wish,” he says. “That’s the answer! If I don’t make the wish, you can stay here in the palace for as long as you want. You’ll never have to go back to your lamp. We can fight off anyone who tries to take you from me.

She really was the genie to my Aladdin, although as far as I could recall, I had never rubbed the magic lamp.

THE STORY OF ALADDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP

Zahra, what happens to you when I make my last wish?” “When your third wish is granted, you will cease to be my master. You may possess the lamp, but you cannot call me. I will return to it and await the next Lampholder.” Abruptly he stands and walks across the room. When he reaches the wall, he turns and stares down at me. “So to win my revenge, I must lose you.

I always want to know how things work. Had I been Aladdin, I am certain that just after one wish or two, I'd have taken that old lamp apart to see if I could make another, better lamp.

For a moment we are weightless, eyes open and locked underwater, flowers drawn down with us, swirling around us in a current of white bubbles. My hair floats around us both like black silk. His hands are still around my waist, mine pressed against his bare chest. My lamp drifts between us. Aladdin plants his feet against the bottom of the pool and kicks off, pushing us upward to burst through the surface. He gasps in air and shakes the wet hair from his eyes. Without pulling away, we float in silence, and I cannot take my gaze from him. Water runs down his cheeks and lips, dripping from his jaw. A lock of his hair is stuck to his forehead, and I gently lift it away, curling it around my finger before letting it go. “What are we doing?” he whispers, pulling me closer. I cannot reply. I don’t trust my own voice. He brings his forehead down to rest against mine, and everything outside this pool and this moment ceases to exist. All that matters is the gentle sound of our breathing, our reflections on the water, the feel of his hands around me.

Why do you care what happens to her? I thought we humans were vapors to you, here today and gone tomorrow.” “Caspida is . . . different. She reminds me of someone, someone I’d give my life for if I could.” “The queen?” he asks. “The one who died?” “Roshana. My dear Ro.” My voice is soft as a ripple on the water. “She once ruled the Amulens, and Caspida is her descendant. She has Roshana’s strength of spirit, and I cannot look at her without thinking of my old friend. If she were to come to harm on my account . . . I could not bear that through the centuries.” I already carry a mountain of shame, a constant reminder of that day on Mount Tissia. Aladdin lifts a hand and brushes the hair back from my face. “You truly are remarkable, Zahra of the Lamp.

You understand why you must go through with this marriage.” “You say you couldn’t live with yourself if anything happened to Caspida. Yet you ask me to live with myself, knowing I sentenced you to this!” He holds up the lamp. “What’s the difference?” I look away angrily. “The difference is that this is my choice, Aladdin.” “Well, it’s a stupid choice!” I stand up. “Promise me you’ll go through with it.” He shuts his eyes. “Promise me! Please!” He opens his eyes then, and they are filled with pain. But he nods. “I have to hear you say it.” “I promise.

I always knew it would end like this. It always does. There’s no point in fighting it, Aladdin. It is simply the way of things.” “I can’t accept that.” “You must.” “How can you just give up? How can you say that?” His eyes light up, and he takes the lamp from his sash and grips it so tightly his knuckles whiten. “Earlier, before you kissed me, I was about to wish for your freedom.” I leap to my feet. “Aladdin, you must not do that. You must never even think it!” “Why is that so bad? You’d be free.” “It’s called the Forbidden Wish for a reason!” “By whom? Nardukha? Let him come. I have a few things I’d like to say to him.” “I forbid it. Aladdin. If anything we have done together means anything to you, please, please trust me now. Don’t make that wish. It is the worst wish you can make. It is—it will break my heart.” “What is it?” he asks softly. “What is it you’re not telling me? What happens if I wish for your freedom?” I stand trembling, the words clawing at my throat, until I can hold them back no more. “Like all wishes, the Forbidden Wish comes at a price. My freedom must be bought with a death, a life paid in sacrifice. And I will not let you make that sacrifice, not for me.

and I look on my brain as a mass of hydraulically compacted thoughts, a bale of ideas, and my head as a smooth, shiny Aladdin’s lamp. How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place a thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn’t have helped, because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself.

I rest my head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beating against me. I wish I could gather time around us, slowing the minutes, making them last a lifetime. “I was born on the island kingdom of Ghedda,” I whisper. This is a story I never told even to you, Habiba. I tell it now only because I cannot bear to leave him without the truth, knowing only half of me. I raise my head and meet his eyes. “That was more than four thousand years ago. I was the eldest daughter of a wise and generous king.” Aladdin stares at me, his eyes soft and curious, encouraging me to go on. “When I was seventeen, I became queen of Ghedda. In those days, the jinn were greater in number, and the Shaitan held greater sway over the realms of men. He demanded we offer him twenty maidens and twenty warriors in sacrifice, in return for fair seas and lucrative trade. I was young and proud and desired, above all else, to be a fair ruler. I would not bow to his wishes, so he shook our island until it began to fall into the sea.” I shudder, and Aladdin draws me closer. “I climbed to the alomb at the top of the Mountain of Tongues, and there offered myself to the Shaitan, if he would only save my city from the sea.” My voice falls to a whisper, little more than a ripple on the water. “So he took me and made me jinn and put me in the lamp. And then he caused the Mountain of Tongues to erupt, and Ghedda was lost to fire. For he had sworn only to save my people from the sea, not from flame.

Nope.' He grabs my hand and places it over his heart. 'I already know the truth. We’re dating.' His eyebrows waggle. 'Exclusively.' 'Gross.' 'Do you want to wear my letterman’s jacket?' 'I’m going to vomit.' '“Should I buy you a corsage?' 'Seriously. Gagging.' 'Okay, no corsage.' He laughs. 'Just the matching tattoos, then?' 'Seriously.' I fight the urge to stomp my foot. 'Let it go, Parker. Let it go.' 'Hey, Elsa, don’t quote Frozen to me unless you’re prepared to listen to the entire soundtrack in my car on the way to Seaport.' I stare up at him. 'I’m not sure whether I should be disturbed or turned on by the fact that you know all the words to Let It Go.' He grins. 'Definitely turned on.' 'Downloaded in your iTunes library, no doubt.' I shake my head. 'This is nearly as disturbing as the time I learned the song A Whole New World from Aladdin is a metaphor for mind-blowing sex.' 'I’m sorry, what?' 'I can open your eyes? Lead you wonder by wonder? Over, sideways, and under?' I snort. 'Come on. That’s basically soft-core porn.' 'Thank you, Zoe, for ruining a beloved Disney classic for me.' 'Anytime.' 'For the record…' He trails off. I wince, anticipating the worst. 'What?' 'I’ll take you on my magic carpet ride any time you want, snookums.' 'Pass.' 'So, that’s a no on rubbing my lamp then?' 'You know, I think I’ll just find my own way to Nate’s…' I turn and start walking to the elevator. 'Oh, come on.' Parker twines his fingers with mine and pushes the call button, humming under his breath. 'I’m a genie in a bottle, baby, gotta rub—' 'AH!' I stare at him in horror as the elevator arrives. 'So help me god if you start singing vintage Christina Aguilera lyrics right now, I will murder you with my bare hands.

It was odd that I hadn’t really noticed till now what a beautiful evening it was. The street lamps glowed like ripe oranges among the bare boughs. Below in the wet street their globes glimmered down and down, to drown in their own reflections. He hangs in shades the orange bright, like golden lamps … and on the pavements there were piles of oranges, too, real ones, spilled there in prodigal piles with aubergines and green and scarlet peppers. The open door of a wine-shop glittered like Aladdin’s cave with bottles from floor to roof, shelf on shelf of ruby and amber and purple, the rich heart of a hundred sun-drenched harvests. From a brightly-lit workmen’s café nearby came music, the sound of voices loud in argument, and the smell of new bread. The last lamp drowned its golden moon in the road ahead. The last house vanished and we were running between hedgeless fields. To the right a pale sky still showed clear under the western rim of the rain-clouds, and against it the bare trees that staked the road stood out black and sheer. The leaves of an ilex cut the half-light like knives. A willow streamed in the wind like a woman’s hair. The road lifted itself ahead, mackerel-silver under its bending poplars. The blue hour, the lovely hour … Then the hills were round us, and it was dark.

That night, Marjan dreamt of Mehregan. The original day of thanksgiving, the holiday is celebrated during the autumn equinox in Iran. A fabulous excuse for a dinner party, something that Persians the world over have a penchant for, Mehregan is also a challenge to the forces of darkness, which if left unheeded will encroach even on the brightest of flames. Bonfires and sparklers glitter in the evening skies on this night, and in homes across the country, everyone is reminded of their blessings by the smell of roasting 'ajil', a mixture of dried fruit, salty pumpkin seeds, and roasted nuts. Handfuls are showered on the poor and needy on Mehregan, with a prayer that the coming year will find them fed and showered with the love of friends and family. In Iran, it was Marjan's favorite holiday. She even preferred it to the bigger and brasher New Year's celebrations in March, anticipating the festivities months in advance. The preparations would begin as early as July, when she and the family gardener, Baba Pirooz, gathered fruit from the plum, apricot, and pear trees behind their house. Along with the green pomegranate bush, the fruit trees ran the length of the half-acre garden. Four trees deep and rustling with green and burgundy canopies, the fattened orchard always reminded Marjan of the bejeweled bushes in the story of Aladdin, the boy with the magic lamp. It was sometimes hard to believe that their home was in the middle of a teeming city and not closer to the Alborz mountains, which looked down on Tehran from loftier heights. After the fruit had been plucked and washed, it would be laid out to dry in the sun. Over the years, Marjan had paid close attention to her mother's drying technique, noting how the fruit was sliced in perfect halves and dipped in a light sugar water to help speed up the wrinkling. Once dried, it would be stored in terra-cotta canisters so vast that they could easily have hidden both both young Marjan and Bahar. And indeed, when empty the canisters had served this purpose during their hide-and-seek games.

Inevitably, individualism has made an impact on the way religion is conceived. The spread of privatized spirituality, developed apart from a disciplined and disciplining church, doubtless fosters desires for personal connection with the transcendent, but, at the risk of an oxymoron, it is a personally defined transcendence. Privatized spirituality is not conspicuously able to foster care for others.103 God, if S/He exists, must satisfy the prime criterion: S/He must meet my needs, as I define them. It is hard to resist the conclusion that this God is less the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ than a Christianized species of the genie in Aladdin’s lamp. Having abandoned authoritative revelation and ecclesiastical tradition alike, many in this generation find it easy to adopt all sorts of absurd beliefs, provided only that they serve personal interests: this is the age when huge sums are paid to psychic counselors, when even Time lists crystal healing as a possible medical remedy, when an American president seeks guidance from astrologers.

The most enduring ideas of the Milesian physicists proved to be their speculations on the nature of matter, particularly their belief that there was an arche, or fundamental substance, that endured through all apparent change. Aristotle writes that “Thales, who led the way in this kind of philosophy, says that the principle is water, and for this reason declared that the earth rests on water.” Aristotle thought that Thales chose water as the arche “from the observation that the nourishment of all creatures is moist… and water is for most moist things the origin of their nature.” His choice of water was undoubtedly because it is normally a liquid but when heated becomes a vapor and when frozen is transformed to solid ice, so that the same substance appears in all three forms of matter.

For five hundred years my sisterhood has passed down a sacred vow,” says Caspida coldly, “to destroy the one who destroyed our queen. You know this, and you speak these words only to deceive me as you deceived her. You would have me believe that you are capable of love.” “Believe me when I say I wish that I were not!” Angrily I round on her. “I do not tell you this for myself! Aladdin will die any moment, and the only way to save him is if you make a wish! Please, Caspida—they will kill him at dawn!” I point at the horizon, where the sun is minutes away from rising. “Let me save him, I beg you!” I drop to my knees before her, doing what I never thought I could: grovel before a human. My pride unravels into smoke, carried away on the wind. Always I have thought myself above these mortals—I, immortal, powerful, able to shift from this form to that. But I let all of that go now, and I beg as I have never begged before. “Do what you like with me after that, but just let me save him!” I dig my fingers into the earth, my eyes damp with tears. My voice falls to a cracked whisper. “Please.” “Why?” I raise my face, finding her gaze unyielding. “Because it was my idea. Him wishing to be made a prince. Courting you. Lying all these weeks. I manipulated him and used him, and now they will kill him for it.” “Why would you lead him into the palace knowing that eventually the truth would come out and he would have to pay the price?” “Because . . .” I grind my teeth together, wishing the earth would swallow me up. “Because I was trying to win my freedom. Your people had captured the prince of the jinn—Nardukha’s own son. The Shaitan sent me to free him, and in turn, he would free me from my lamp. If I failed, he planned to sink your city into the sea. I had to get into the palace. Aladdin was my only way in.” “So you don’t deny that you’re a monster. You used him for your own ends.” I drop my head. “I know what I am. I know nothing can excuse what I did to Roshana, or to Aladdin, or to you. I’ve wronged so many, and there is so much I wish I could take back. I can’t save Roshana. But please—I beg of you—let me save him.” Caspida lowers to her knees and studies me. I meet her gaze, humbled utterly. “You want me to believe that you love him,” she whispers. “Yes.” The word is but a breath, a stir of air in my treacherous lungs. “We’re running out of time. I cannot reverse death or the hours. Time is the strongest magic, and no jinni—not even the Shaitan—can rewrite the past. Once Aladdin is gone, he is gone. Let me save him, and I can help you win your city.

But are you aware of the courage, the audacity which my profession requires? Very few people are gifted for it. I had the vocation. It showed very early in my capacity for deluding myself... What I corrupted was what is called the truth in favour of a marvellous world. I could always improve on the facts... The smoke issuing from Aladdin's lamp was my first smokescreen, and the lies learned from fairytales were my first perjuries. Let us say I had perverted tendencies: I believed everything I read. I never found a way to get what I wanted except by robbery.

Rubbing Lamps Things besides Aladdin’s and the golden cave fish’s lamps grant wishes. In fact, most lamps aren’t lamp- shaped and happen by accident: an ordinary knob goes lambent as you twist or a cloth turns to silver mesh against a dish- something so odd and filled with promise for a minute that you spend your only wish wishing someone else could see it.

It didn’t matter how much or how little Aladdin rubbed the lamp, the genie only came out because he wanted to.

A young mark twain on the make: "I can't turn in inkstand into Aladdin's lamp.

Scarce had Aladdin’s mother begun to rub the Lamp when there appeared to her one of the Jinn, who said to her in a voice like thunder, “Say what you want of me. Here am I, your slave and the slave of whosoever holds the Lamp.