Nafiza Azad > Quotes

“You can’t judge an entire population of a people by the actions of a select few. You can’t use your grief and your sorrow to justify your hate and your discrimination.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“The desert has been a balm to all her hurts. This place with its emptiness and the promise of heat glimmering underneath the sand.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“The desert sings of loss, always loss, and if you stand quiet with your eyes closed, it will grieve you too.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Death will not be denied, Fatima Ghazala. I cannot promise never to die, habibti. But before death, there is life. No matter how short our hours are or how swiftly time flees, there is life. And since there is life, habibti, let us live. Let us not squander even one second of it.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Aren't you angry, sister? At being treated the we are? At having to pick up the pieces of what remains after the world is through with us? At being silenced and abused? At being denied our dignity, our bodies, our voices, and our right to justice? Aren't you angry?
Embrace this anger. Let it fuel your every days. Defy everyone who tells you that you can't.
Be wild.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“I wonder what you see in him," Fatima muses.
"Apart from his excellent muezzin abilities, you mean?" Adila says.
"The symmetry of his face moves me." Azizah sniffs.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Cities have souls, you know. They are alive and sometimes they die. They grow old either gracefully or shamefully. They shrink and they expand. They grieve and celebrate." -The Wild Ones”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“Aren't you cold" Zulfikar shrugs off the plain black shawl he had around his shoulders and wraps it around Fatima Ghazala.
"It smells like you," she says, drawing it close around her.
"I didn't need that observation," Zulfikar mutters.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Sometimes we wish for things and people we never had but other people take for granted. Like:
A mother who worries when you don't come home at night. A father who is neither a gaping absence nor only present in the marks on our bodies. The luxury of nights not fragmented by nightmares. Bodies that are ours alone.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“You have the right to your fears, to your desires, to your dislikes" -Paheli”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“People, Firdaus told Fatima Ghazala, are afraid of death for two very different reasons. The first one is obvious: They do not know what, if anything, lies beyond the veil. That is a matter of faith. The second reason is also obvious: People are afraid of being forgotten. They live their lives carving themselves spaces in time and history only to be forgotten anyway. Even those who gain fame or notoriety fall victim to time; what people remember are not the individuals directly but as they were experienced by the people who knew them. A person's truth, a person's essence, fades with a person's death. That is simply the way of life.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“One crisp dusk when the skies are a red befitting my mood, I say goodbye to the azaan that comes from the east where the masjid is. After night eases into all corners previously owned by light, the people at the mandir start their puja. The music of the sitar and the accompanying voices raised in prayer fill the air. I stand outside in the garden, alone for once, and the frogs skirt the area I stand in as if they too know the state of my heart. I look up at the sky. I don't have a camera to capture the heavens heavy with stars, so I look my fill and try to impress the image into my heart. I know there will be other skies and other stars, but nothing will ever compare to these.”
― Nafiza Azad, Come On In

“... very soon, the city of Noor became the city of the displaced. People fleeing from terror, war, and persecution found houses in the empty buildings of the city and homes in one another. People who spoke different languages learned to understand one another. People of different faiths learned tolerance - and were sometimes taught it.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Even when the break is in the heart, the body bears evidence of it. You know what we're talking about. Of course you do. Being a girl, a woman, means being fluent in the languages of pain and power. Knowing what hurts and how much and if you have the ability to endure it." -The Wild Ones”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“Life has embroidered all her experiences in the lines on her face. The wrinkles near her lips keep record of the smiles she gives generously while the lines on her forehead echo the worries she has battled. Deep grooves at the corners of her eyes lend weight to all the things she has seen in the years she has been alive - not that anyone is sure how many those are. However, thought time has aged her, it has yet to defeat her. Apples still bloom in her cheeks; her gaze is as bright and inquisitive as a child's.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Sunsets and sunrises are perhaps the only things that still command our reverence. One announces and end to pain and the other indicates a new beginner: two things that are invaluable to us" -Paheli”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“The classics are singular narratives focusing on those privileged enough to know how to read and write - Fatima (The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad)”
― Nafiza Azad

“I am cobbled together by foolish ideas and reckless behavior. It has kept me alive so far.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“But you, you are cavalier with your disregard for danger. You taunt death as if daring it to try to take you away.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“Tayseir: Are you looking for trouble?
Paheli: I hope so. I've even sent it an invitation.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“You learn fear all at once, you know. In less than one second, your body will understand all its shades and ken all its depths. Corners will become sinister and the sound of footsteps will become reasons to panic. Darkness will begin to mean more than just the absence of light. A half-second is all it takes to learn fear. But it will take you a lifetime to unlearn it. Me? I am not there yet, and I have lived several lifetimes. Make of that what you will.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“Do you know how difficult it is to love anything or anyone when your sense of self has been shattered?" -Paheli”
― Nafiza Azad, The Wild Ones

“On a break, Fatima comments, "You got new books, baba."
"Yes. I got them for you, actually. Since you scorn the classics..."
"The classics are singular narratives focusing on those privileged enough to know how to read and write," Fatima retorts.
"But surely you cannot deny the beauty of the rhetoric?"
"I don't trust that beauty, baba," Fatima says, and directs her gaze at Firdaus. "You taught me not to trust that beauty."
"Indeed I did. But I did not intend for you to eschew the great literary works in favor of - "
"Works by the common people? These works may not have wondrous prose, baba, but the experiences they write about are theirs, which makes their stories so much better than those who live in guilded cages and write about the world outside. These writers don't have the luxury of ennue, you see.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

“Since we are good Muslim girls, we will stare at him from afar and hope he stares back - Amirah (The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad)”
― Nafiza Azad

“On a break, Fatima comments, "You got new books, baba."
"Yes. I got them for you, actually. Since you scorn the classics..."
"The classics are singular narratives focusing on those privileged enough to know how to read and write," Fatima retorts.
"But surely you cannot deny the beauty of the rhetoric?"
"I don't trust that beauty, baba," Fatima says, and directs her gaze at Firdaus. "You taught me not to trust that beauty."
"Indeed I did. But I did not intend for you to eschew the great literary works in favor of - "
"Works by the common people? These works may not have wondrous prose, baba, but the experiences they write about are theirs, which makes their stories so much better than those who live in guilded cages and write about the world outside. These writers don't have the luxury of ennui, you see.”
― Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame