Nahla > Nahla's Quotes

“Belief means nothing without actions”
― 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?

“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?

“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?

“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

“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?

“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?

“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?

“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?

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

“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?

“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?

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

“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

“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?

“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

“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?

“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?

“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?

“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

“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

“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?

“That's why when Peter started talking to me in homeroom this morning, i soaked up his attention like a doughnut dipped in coffee. The fact that his comments have left me soggy and wilted doesn't matter. That's the price you pay when you withdraw to the safety of anonymity”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Ten Things I Hate About Me

“You never feel good when you lie. It doesn't matter how much you want something, if you lie to somebody you love, and they actually, sincerely believe you, you feel like a cockroach that needs some serious Raid action.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah

“...زمینی سرسبز و حاصل خیز که بیش از صد درخت زیتون در آن ریشه دوانده بود.
بابا همیشه می گفت:"این درخت ها مقدس اند. این ها بخشی از میراثِ ما هستند که در قرآن آمده است. حضرت مریم مادر گران قدر حضرت مسیح وقتی که درد زایمان بر او چیره شد به درخت زیتون پناه برد."
من تصحیح کردم:"درخت خرما بوده بابا."
...
"اوه...!باشه،چه فرقی می کند؟ حالا خرما یا زیتون، ریشه های درخت های این سرزمین همگی مقدس اند.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Where the Streets Had a Name

“تا حالا نفهمیده بودم که حجاب چیزی بیشتر از پاکدامنی هم دارد. ...این لباس ما را در یک خواهری ِ جهانی به همدیگر پیوند می دهد.”
― Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?