Róisín > Róisín's Quotes

“The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“she believed that everyone had a right to a certain share of dignity. And inside your dignity, as if it were a patch of soil that belonged to no one else, you would sow a seed of hope. A tiny germ that one day, somehow, might sprout and blossom.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in differetnt directions, you cannot put it back together.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“...a country is never simply one thing at a time: it is both fond memories of childhood and bitter civil war, it is both people and tribes, countryside and cities, waves of immigration and emigration, it is its past, its present, and its future, it is what has come to pass, and the sum of its possibilities.”
― Alice Zeniter, The Art of Losing

“Emira was a bit late to adulthood, that she should have moved on to something else, and that she currently held a job that thirteen-year-olds were trusted to do.”
― Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age

“You need to understand your limitations so you can overcome them.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“East, West, South or North makes little difference. No matter what your destination, just be sure to make every journey, a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Truth, justice...I always thought they were absolutes, like God. And Mom. And apple pie.
But you could make apple pie from Ritz crackers. You could make cakes without sugar. We learned how to fake things, during the war.”
― Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied

“نحن لا نخاف من الماضي لان كل ما يمكن ان يحدث قد حدث فيه و اصبح بمتناول ذكرياتنا نحن نخشى المستقبل”
― Shahad Al Rawi, ساعة بغداد

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That's the hardest part and that's what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“إن الصمت الذي يعقب كارثة هائلة، هو أشد الأصوات التي يمكنك سماعها هدوءًا على سطح البسيطة.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel, world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“البشر هم أنفسهم في كل مكان. والطعام نفسه، والماء نفسه، والحماقة القديمة نفسها.”
― إليف شافاق, The Forty Rules of Love

“It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold of them, and not let unseen tides pull us apart.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“في الشطرنج، كما في الحياة، توجد حركات تنفذها لتربح، و حركات تقوم بها لأنها الحركات التي يجب أن تقدم عليها.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“إن المرء الذي يعتقد بأن لديه جميع الأجوبة
هو أكثر الناس جهلا.”
― إليف شافاق, The Forty Rules of Love

“That was a mistake: to have been emotional, to have been seen and heard to be emotional,”
― Anna Burns, Milkman

“It is never too late to ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?’ Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time. I thought if I did normal things - held down a job, for example - I could starve off the part of me that hated everything.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“لا تهتمي إلى أين سيقودك الطريق، بل ركزي على الخطوة الأولى . فهي أصعب خطوة يجب أن تتحملي مسؤوليتها.وما إن تتخذي تلك الخطوة دعي كل شيء يجري بشكل طبيعي وسيأتي ما تبقى من تلقاء نفسه. لا تسيري مع التيار، بل كوني أنت التيار.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“she yearned for success in multiple tasks in life and ended up accomplishing none.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Ce qu'on ne transmet pas, ça se perd, c'est tout. Tu viens d'ici mais ce n'est pas chez toi.”
― Alice Zeniter, L'Art de perdre

“Family stories intermingle in such ways that what happened generations ago can have an impact on seemingly irrelevant developments of the present day. The past is anything but bygone.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was what had captured her in the charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood came, your choices solidifying, and you realize that everything you are had been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half