Haleema

“Her mother had once told her that childhood was a big, blue wave that lifted you up, carried you forth and, just when you thought it would last forever, vanished from sight. You could neither run after it nor bring it back. But the wave, before it disappeared, left a gift behind – a conch shell on the shore. Inside the seashell were stored all the sounds of childhood.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“If there was a God up there, He must be laughing His head off at a human race capable of making atomic bombs and building artificial intelligence, but still uncomfortable with their own mortality and unable to sort out what to do with their dead. How pathetic it was to try to relegate death to the periphery of life when death was at the centre of everything.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“The world is no longer the same for the one who has fallen in love, the one who is at its very centre; it can only spin faster from now on.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“What was love if it wasn't nursing someone else's pain as if it were your own?”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World