Simran Azeem

“He knew, even back then, that she was prone to bouts of melancholy. It came to her in successive waves, an ebb and flow. When the first wave arrived, barely touching her toes, it was so light and translucent a ripple that you might be forgiven for thinking it insignificant, that it would vanish soon, leaving no trace. But then followed another wave, and the next one, rising as far as her ankles, and the one after that covering her knees, and before you knew it she was immersed in liquid pain, up to her neck, drowning. That's how depression sucked her in.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“There was something childlike in the way grown-ups had a need for stories. They held a naive belief that by telling an inspiring anecdote-the right fable at the right time-they could lift their children's moods, motivate them to great achievements and simply change reality. There was no point in telling them that life was more complicated than that and words less magical than they presumed.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“had suffered pain beyond her imagination. Some people break up after a big fight, but there are also people who drift incrementally apart until they can’t face each other anymore. The latter stay longer in your memory.”
― Choi Eunyoung, Shoko's Smile

“I couldn’t stand her love, which did not reject even the ugliest of my faces. I couldn’t stand it because I had been afraid of being loved from the beginning.”
― Choi Eunyoung, Shoko's Smile: Stories