Amna S > Amna's Quotes

“Maybe that's what living is--recognizing the marvels and oddities around you.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“I'm not a violent person. I'm not advocating violence. But I am an angry person. I'm advocating for more people to get angry. Get moved.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― S.K. Ali, Saints and Misfits

“The world is a mysterious place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail.
On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities only extending to how far our vision goes.
For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us.
For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.
And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is.
Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Your resistance to my existence is futile.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“This is a love story. You’ve been warned.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“I was in this weird space of wanting not to be alone and wanting not to be crowded, either.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“They say friends are the family you choose”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Human rights. For everyone. Because that was the only way the world made sense. When the arc of care went far and wide, it journeyed and battled to exclude none.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“Life goes on, even if love doesn't.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“I’m someone who gets consumed by stuff. It engulfs me, wraps me up in its embrace, and doesn’t let me be until I’ve deal with it.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“One of the reasons Ayaan said she loves being Muslim is because it makes her feel like a natural feminist. "Like hello? Our queen Khadija didn't wait for the man she had her eye on to ask her, to get on his knees. Nope. Instead, she said, 'I like you, oh employee of mine. Will you marry me?' And then, after they hitched, she just kept her job as his boss. Mad respect.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“We're allowed to cry.”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“But it's not smooth sailing"
"Life isn't?”
― S.K. Ali, Love from A to Z

“There are a lot of ways to show our faith and love to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. You pick the ones that are right for who you are right now.”
― S.K. Ali, Once Upon an Eid

“How do you wash off what can't be seen?”
― S. K. Ali

“the why you do something is important.”
― S.K. Ali, Saints and Misfits

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend. The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body.

I want to know where to touch you, I want to know how to touch you. I want to know convince you to design a smile just for me. Yes, I do want to be your friend. I want to be your best friend in the entire world.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Ignite, my love. Ignite.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“The man is moody as hell.”

“I am not moody—”

“Yeah, bro.” Kenji puts his utensils down. “You are moody. It’s always ‘Shut up, Kenji.’ ‘Go to sleep, Kenji.’ ‘No one wants to see you naked, Kenji.’ When I know for a fact that there are thousands of people who would love to see me naked—”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“It's not charity," I snap. "He cares about me--and I care about him!"

Warner nods, unimpressed. "You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Time goes on even when we do not.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment.

He has a soft spot for fashion.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.
It creeps on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes by your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can't breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out of every corner. It's a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you're struggling to stand up.
You wake up in the morning and wonder who you are. You fail to fall asleep at night and tremble in your skin. You doubt you doubt you doubt.
do I
don't I
should I
why won't I
And even when you're ready to let go. When you're ready to break free. When you're ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend stand beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough never enough never ever enough.
Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion.
Sometimes it just won't let go.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever.

Because this.

This is everything.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Hope is a pocket of possibility.
I'm holding it in my hand.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me