Randa Abdel-Fattah > Quotes

“Belief means nothing without actions”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in people. And sometimes one act of kindness is all it takes to give you hope again.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Life isn’t like the movies. People don’t change overnight. people don’t go from arrogant and self-righteous to ashamed and remorseful. They don’t suddenly give in when they’ve spent years taking out. No doesn’t magically become a Yes.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“What’s the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don’t change what’s on the inside,were it really counts ?”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“I want to be with one person in my life. I want to know that the guy I spend the rest of my life with is the first person I share something so intimate and exciting with.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong to please Him.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Yeah, don't you take a break?'
'I don't have time for breaks.'
'That's the whole point of a break. When you've got no time, you need a break.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Everything is relative. If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don’t look at its manifestation.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Parents. Honestly. Sometimes they really do think the world revolves around them.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“But persistent name calling? that prolongs hurt. It stretches out. Each nasty word stretches the rubber band further away until finally, one day, it snaps back at you with maximum impact”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Ten Things I Hate About Me

“And it’s when I’m standing there this morning, in my PJs and a hijab, next to my mum and my dad, kneeling before God, that I feel a strange sense of calm. I feel like nothing can hurt me, and nothing else matters.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“We have to choices in this world; we either try to survive or to give up.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Where the Streets Had a Name

“Too many people look at it as though it (the hijab) has bizarre powers sewn into its microfibers. Powers that transform Muslim girls into UCOs (Unidentified Covered Objects), which turn Muslim girls from an 'us' to a 'them.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“It's like one of those scenes from a feel-good Hollywood movie. Where everybody is happy and nobody's hair fizzes in the wind. Where it doesn't rain, your shoes stay comfortable all day, and everybody's jokes are funny.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Once upon a time, a fisherman went out to sea. He caught many fish and threw them all into a large bucket on his boat. The fish were not yet dead, so the man decided to ease their suffering by killing them swiftly. While he worked, the cold air made his eyes water. One of the wounded fish saw this and said to the other: "What a kind heart this fisherman has- see how he cries for us." The other fish replied: "Ignore his tears and watch what he is doing with his hands.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Where the Streets Had a Name

“True friends are those who love you not in spite of your faults and imperfections, but because of them.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah

“همه این مدت با این فکر سر می کردم که پرهیزکار شدم,چون تصمیمی به سختی پوشیدن حجاب گرفته ام...اما چه فایده ای دارد که در ظاهر دین داری کنی,وقتی درونت را تغییر نداده باشی, آن هم وقتی که واقعا مهم است که این کار را بکنی? این مدت با خودم شوخی می کرده ام.پوشیدن حجاب آخر این سفر نیست. اول آن است.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This?

“I'm starting to realize that being born into this social world is a little like being born into clean air. You take it in as soon as you breathe, and pretty soon you don't even realize that while you can walk around with clear lungs, other people are wearing oxygen masks just to survive.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, The Lines We Cross

“Yes, Simone, he is mentally unstable for being attracted to you. call the men in white suits.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“The one-eyed is always beauty in the land of the blind.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Where the Streets Had a Name

“You? Nervous? Man, you've got more balls than any girl I've ever known!'

'You've known some weird girls, then," I say, raising an eyebrow at him.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Your perception is riveting, Amal," he says in a bored and sarcastic tone, dropping the note down on my desk. "It's comforting to know that there are people in my class who have the maturity and intelligence to make derogatory comments about other people's external appearances."

Now what am I supposed to say to that?

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Friggin' mind reader.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“Grief, especially when it's still raw, is like having a thirst that no amount of water quenches. It can't be consoled; it can't be alleviated. It's unrelenting and constant. I wish I could tell her that it will get easier with time. But if I told her that I'd also have to tell her that easier doesn't mean it ever goes away.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, The Lines We Cross

“Are you still doing that crap?" I ask.

"You can't even do it properly," Eileen says.

"Just a matter of practice," Simone says.

"Wow! Practicing how to poison yourself and make your breath reek like the fart of a seagull!" Eileen cries.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

“در اردوگاه بودم که صدای این زن را شنیدم، نخست وزیرشان که اسمش را به خاطر نمی آورم گفت:" چیزی به نام فلسطینی وجود ندارد. این موجودات ".وجود خارجی ندارند
آن شب در حالی به خواب رفتم که تب داشتم. حرف های او مرا مسموم کرد حیات. من وجود داشتم حیات. من زنده بودم!”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Where the Streets Had a Name

“The scariest thing about people like Terrence and my parents is not that they can be cruel. It's that they can be kind too.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, When Michael Met Mina

“I couldn't stop bawling, watching the towers come down. it was a terrible thing to happen. And a terrible thing to realize that I don't sit though the nigh crying when such horrors happen all the time.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah

“Maybe you only get one chance at meeting somebody who really gets inside you, wakes corners of your mind and heart that you didn't know were asleep.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, The Lines We Cross

“I just don't know what I'd do without a brain, Simone!" I say. "I mean, what's a person without one?”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?