How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the… - Elif Şafak

We must strive to become intellectual nomads, keep moving, keep learning, resist confining ourselves in any cultural or mental ghetto, and spend more time not in select centres but at the margins, which is where real change always comes from.

"The world is unfair, said Meryem. "If a stone falls on an egg, it is bad for the egg; if an egg falls on a stone, it is still bad for the egg.

There was something childlike in the way grown-ups had a need for stories. They held a naive belief that by telling an inspiring anecdote-the right fable at the right time-they could lift their children's moods, motivate them to great achievements and simply change reality. There was no point in telling them that life was more complicated than that and words less magical than they presumed.