I’ve spent half of my life not knowing the difference between killing myself and fighting back. What if I don’t want healing
as much as I want justice? What if I don’t care if justice looks exactly like revenge? Do you think I don’t know that I can’t want revenge without strapping the bomb to my own chest? That’s how the dominoes of trauma fall. You become just another thing about to detonate.

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.

If I advance; follow me! If I retreat; kill me! If I die; avenge me!

You kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. In the end, it does nothing. Nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

I cannot die now, I thought. No, I have to seek vengeance; together with all the other people who have been made to suffer, I have to get back at those who have caused our suffering. No. I must not die.

It’s a dirty, damn universe, and every once in a while I get a chance to hit back at it. That’s all. If I knew in the morning when I started out that I was going to be killed that day, I’d still go—because I couldn’t die happier than to go down hitting back.

The way of revenge lies in simply forcing one's way into a place and being cut down. There is no shame in this. By thinking that you must complete the job you will run out of time. By considering things like how many men the enemy has, time piles up; in the end you will give up. No matter if the enemy has thousands of men, there is fulfillment in simply standing them off and being determined to cut them all down, starting from one end. You will finish the greater part of it.

I suspect you are intent upon some sort of revenge, in response to this dreadful tragedy?'
'And?' I said.
'Let me counsel you. In moments such as this, we are inclined to allow the animal aspect of our natures to take control. It is a mistake. ... Because revenge can destroy a man as surely as the plague. It seems like a god, so pure and true, and full of its sense of justice and entitlement. But it is truly a monster. It feeds perpetually upon its own pain, and upon any pain it can find. And it can never be satisfied until everything has been destroyed utterly.

Coupled with my hate-fueled eagerness to carry out my act of revenge, there was also an extreme sense of fear inside me. Part of me still didn’t want to do it. It will mean my death, and I have always been afraid of death.

Revenge is the mode of ignorance — it’s often said that you can’t fix yourself by breaking someone else. Monks don’t hinge their choices and feelings on others’ behaviors. You believe revenge will make you feel better because of how the other person will react.

The ultimate revenge is living well and being happy. Hateful people can't stand happy people. Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”-

The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish day-dream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

Death makes us strangers to ourselves ... Do not indulge yourself in a self-pitying, self-gratifying revenge. More than likely you would simply end up dead as well.

The world has turned suddenly upside down. Love? Love does not do this. This is hatred. I feel hatred and seek revenge; my adversary is within and I needs (sic) must confront him. Even so, there is still in my mind a modicum of sense that is aware of the irony of the situation. I begin from where Mustafa Sa'eed had left off. Yet he at least made a choice, while I have chosen nothing.