Sabina Khan > Quotes

“We must be the masters of our own destinies. I did not learn that until it was too late. You have to fight to take back control of your life. Sometimes you will hurt the ones you love the most. But in the end, it will always have to be your choice.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“We are who we are. No one can change that. Just like we cannot change whom we love.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“I've never needed a knight. I can wield my own damn sword when I need to.”
― Sabina Khan, Zara Hossain Is Here

“I was who I was, and I would not be erased.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“I'm exhausted from the burden of representing almost two billion people.”
― Sabina Khan, Zara Hossain Is Here

“How do I deal with someone who's convinced that his right to exist in this world trumps mine?”
― Sabina Khan, Zara Hossain Is Here

“Most people wont take the time to educate themselves about issues that affect us all. It's easy to think that a lot of it is happening so far away that we don't need to bother.”
― Sabina Khan, Zara Hossain Is Here

“A lethargy took over and I just wanted to sleep the time away. I stared listlessly at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I'd felt normal, just carefree and happy. It should have frightened me but instead, I felt an intense longing to close my eyes and never open them again. It was so much easier this way. I felt nothing, no pain or yearning.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“So what if he's gay. That is not the end of the world. Nowadays even in Bangladesh there are activists fighting for the rights of gay people. Times are changing and we have to change with them.

Meena, we cannot only think about what people will say all the time.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“It's so easy to paint all the people you don't want to accept with the same brush. That way you can tell yourself you're just protecting your way of life and that they're the ones encroaching upon your space.”
― Sabina Khan, Zara Hossain Is Here

“I realized that this was all she ever wanted. A daughter who would follow the rules, grow up, and marry a suitable man. Who she could play dress up with, like she was now. But I was not a doll and I was not who she wanted me to be. That part hurt the most. That she would go to all these lengths to prove she was right but not even try to understand who I really was and what made me happy.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“Apparently, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Bengali girl of marrying age must be in want of a husband.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“You know, Rukhsana, I thought I was being a good Muslim, stopping you from committing a grave sin. But that night, I realized I was the real sinner. In the eyes of Allah, I was doing wrong. To hate someone because of who they love⁠—that is the worst thing I could do as a Muslim, as a human being, but mostly as a mother. When we found out that Sohail was killed because he was gay, I knew that Allah would never want that for anyone. And I knew that I still had the chance to make things right but it breaks my heart every day to know that it took Sohail's death to open my eyes. For that, I will never forgive myself.”
― Sabina Khan, The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

“She listens without interrupting and when I'm finished, I put my head on her shoulder and it feels right and there's an electricity between us as we sit in the warm glow of the setting sun. I look up at her and see something in her eyes that I can't define even as her face comes closer to mine, until our lips touch in a mix of tenderness and uncertainty. Her hand brushes back wisps of hair from my forehead and I pull her closer, adjusting my body so that we fit perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle.”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants

“I promise I'll be the pani to your puri.”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants

“The words feel strange on my tongue, at once foreign and familiar, like a long-lost friend I didn't realize I'd missed intensely.”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants

“I've been wearing this outfit all day and so far have only elicited a raised eyebrow from Dadi and a genuine offer from Bilquis to mend the holes in my jeans. And I'm pretty sure I heard one of the maids murmur that they thought Americans were rich.”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants

“Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end, you emerge.”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants

“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times ...
In life after life, in age after age, forever. My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever.

---Unending love by Rabindranath Tagore”
― Sabina Khan, What a Desi Girl Wants