Elena

“It is not their quantative scarcity vis-a-vis the majority that makes minorities hapless but rather their qualitative similarity. As a member of a minority group, you can be as industrious as an ant, even hit the jackpot and acquire a considerable fortune, but someday, just because you presently and will always belong to the same community, you could in an instant find yourself on par with those of your community who have idled their lives away since birth. That is why the affluent among the minorities are never affluent enough; neither are their exceptional members ever sufficiently so.”
― Elif Shafak, Flea Palace

“Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so short-sighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lover’s of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. (9)”
― Elif Shafak.

“My chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom came from the fact that I was living a life based on my incapacities, which were numerous.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don't ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love