Laveezah

“There was something frighteningly dangerous in the expectation that someone had the answer to most of our questions, and that through that person was a shortcut to all that was left unsolved henceforth.”
― Elif Shafak, Havva'nın Üç Kızı

“It happened all the time in this city that encompassed seven hills, two continents, three seas and fifteen million mouths. It happened behind closed doors and in open courtyards; in cheap motel rooms and five-star luxury suites; in the midst of the night or plain daylight. The brothels of this city could tell many a story had they only found ears willing to listen. Call girls and rent boys and aged prostitutes beaten, abused and threatened by clients looking for the smallest excuse to lose their temper. Transsexuals who never went to the police for they knew they could be assaulted a second time. Children scared of particular family members and new brides of their fathers- or brothers-in-law; nurses and teachers and secretaries harassed by infatuated lovers just because they had refused to date them in the past; housewives who would never speak a word for there were no words in this culture to describe marital rape. It happened all the time. Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants. Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close.”
― Elif Shafak, Havva'nın Üç Kızı

“In many parts of the world you were what you said and what you did and, also, what you read; in Turkey, as in all countries haunted by questions of identity, you were, primarily, what you rejected. It seemed that the more people went on about an author, the less likely it was that they had read their books.”
― Elif Shafak, Havva'nın Üç Kızı

“Why did it have to be this way? Why did she not feel attracted to this boy, who was kind and personable, close to her in age and probably good for her? Instead it was the professor for whom she secretly yearned - a man not only old, unknown and unavailable, but also wrong. It puzzled her endlessly that she was not, and had never really been, interested in happiness - that magic word that was the subject of so many books, workshops and TV shows. She did not want to be unhappy. Of course, she didn't. It just did not occur to her to seek happiness as a worthwhile goal in life. How otherwise could she allow herself to carry a torch for a man like Azur?”
― Elif Shafak, Havva'nın Üç Kızı