ASHLEY

“When they no longer had to see tombstones – those ghastly reminders of life’s brevity and God’s severity – European citizens were galvanized into action. Having pushed death out of their daily routines, they could focus on other things: composing arias, inventing the guillotine and then the steam locomotive, colonizing the rest of the world and carving up the Middle East … You could do all that and much more if only you could take your mind off the disturbing thought of being a mere mortal.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“Do not ever pollute the soil, the air or the river. That’s why I never spit on the ground. You shouldn’t do it either.” “What if I have to cough?” “Well, cough into a handkerchief and fold it away. The earth is not a receptacle for our waste matter.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Heart, liver, stomach, lungs, neck, eyes, soul…It is as if love, by its fluid nature, its riverine force, is all about the melding of markers, to the extent that you can no longer tell where your being ends and another’s begins.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“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