Elif Şafak Quotes

Turkish writer (born 1971)

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Elif Shafak (born October 25, 1971) is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, academic, public speaker and women's rights activist.

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Alternative Names: Elif Shafak • Elif Bilgin Shafaq

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إن لا شيء يقربنا من الله غير الألم والمعاناة.

You don't share a language, you think, and then you realise, grief is a language. We understand each other, people with troubled pasts.

perhaps it took a stranger to make a woman like her speak her mind.

Just because you think it’s safe here, it doesn’t mean this is the right place for you, her heart countered. Sometimes where you feel most safe is where you least belong.

إن الأغلبية الساحقة من الناس لا يفكرون مطلقاً، و الذين يفكرون لا يصبحون الأغلبية الساحقة أبداً، فاختاري في أي فئة تريدين أن تكوني

Little did she yet understand that the end of childhood comes not when a child’s body changes with puberty, but when her mind is finally able to see her life through the eyes of an outsider.

A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference. Cartography is another name for stories told by winners. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.

The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!

Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.

" علي عكس ما يحدث في الأفلام، فإن اشارة النهاية" لا تومض في نهاية الكتاب، فعندما أقرأ كتاباً، لا أشعر بأنني أنهيت أي شيء. لذلك فأنا أبدأ كتاباً جديداً

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?

Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.

Some day this pain will be useful to you.

عندما يدخل عاشق حقيقي لله لأي حانة، فإنها تصبح غرفة صلاته, لكن عندما يدخل شارب الخمر إلى الغرفة نفسها، فإنها تصبح خمارته.
ففي كل شيء نفعله، قلوبنا هي المهمة، لا مظاهرنا الخارجية.