Quotes by "Elif Shafak"

Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.

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 bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God wil open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied.

Noatalgia Nalan believed there were two families in this world:relatives formed blood family;and friends,the water family.If your blood family happened to be nice and caring,you could count your lucky stars and make the most of it; and if not,there was still hope; things could take a turn for the better once you are old enough to leave your home sour home. As for the water family, this was formed much later in life and was,to a large extent,of your own making. While it was true that nothing could take the place of a loving, happy blood family, in the absence of one, a good water family could wash away the hurt and pain collected inside like black soot.It is therefore possible for your friends to have a treasured place in your heart, and occupy a bigger space than all your kin combined.But those who had never experienced what it felt like to be spurned by their own relatives would not understand this truth in a million years.They would never know that there were times when water ran thicker than blood.

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

Ayshin's love is like the helm of bureaucracy. She files her correspondence, makes calculations, keeps records, deducts the expenses from the income and thus maintains a colossal archive. She never forgets a quarrel; not only does she not forget, she makes sure it is not forgetten as well.

If someone awakens in us a desire we'd rather not have, we try not to like that person. However, if that fails, we then seek something likeable in him, something good enough to make the desire for him less bothersome, more endurable.

Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.

Миналото е въпрос на тълкуване. Бъдещето е илюзия. Светът не се движи като по права черта през времето и не върви от миналото към бъдещето. Обратното, времето се движи на безкрайни спирали през и вътре в нас. Вечността не е безкрайно време, тя е безвремие. Ако искаш да постигнеш вечно просветление, премахни от съзнанието си миналото и бъдещето и живей в настоящия миг.

Once there was. Once there wasn't. A long, long time ago, in a land not so faraway, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier,and the camel was the barber ... when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry ... when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields ... Once there was. Once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell....

Once there was; once there wasn't. Along, long time ago, in a land not so faraway, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier,and the camel was the barber ... when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry ... when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields ... Once there was; once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell....

Not only are the depressed in a different place but their relationship to time is also warped. Depression recognizes only one time slot-the past-and only one manner of speech: “If only.” People who are depressed have very little contact with the present moment. They live persistently in their memories, resurrecting all that has come and gone. Like a hamster on a wheel or a snake that has swallowed its tail, they are stuck in a roundabout of gloom

Is that what depression is about-the sinking feeling that your connection to God is broken and you are left to float on your own in a liquid black space, like an astronaut who has been cut loose from his spaceship and all that linked him to Earth?

You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.