Elif Shafak Quotes

“The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.”

— Elif Shafak

“Some cities you go to because you want to; some cities you go to because they want you to.”

— Elif Shafak

The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practise compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone's back - not even seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouth do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man's pain will hurt us all. One man's joy will make everyone smile.

— Elif Shafak

Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you

— Elif Shafak

Bountiful is your life, full and complete. Or so you think, until someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul-the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be a lover, a friend, or a spiritual master. Sometimes it can be a child to look after. What matters is to find the soul that will complete
yours. All the prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mirror!.

— Elif Shafak

“The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!”

— Elif Shafak

“Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.”

— Elif Shafak

“What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?”

— Elif Shafak

While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes.

— Elif Shafak

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come”

— Elif Shafak

“No matter who we are or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It's like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.”

— Elif Shafak

But let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die

— Elif Shafak

For despite what some people say, love is not a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away. In many ways the twenty-first century is not that different from the thirteenth century. Both will be recorded in history as times of unprecedented religious clashes, cultural misunderstandings, and a general sense of insecurity and fear of the Other. At times like these, the need for love is greater than ever. Because love is the very essence and purpose of life. As Rumi reminds us, it hits everybody, including those who shun love - even those who use the word "romantic" as a sign of disapproval.

— Elif Shafak

“In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together.'
'Then there'd be no buildings left in the world,' Jahan ventured. 'Everything would be razed to the ground.'
'We are not destroying the buildings, son. We are destroying our desire to possess them. Only God is the owner. Of the stone and of the skill.”

— Elif Shafak

“Yeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, see if we can veer to the East. It's no good to be in between. International politics does not appreciate ambiguity.”

— Elif Shafak

“You are too timid for me. You care too much about what other people think. But you know what? Because you are so desperate to win the approval of others, you'll never get rid of their criticisms, no matter how hard you try. You say you want to travel the path, but you don't want to sacrifice anything to that end. Money, fame, power, lavishness, or carnal pleasure - whatever it is that one holds most dear in life, one should dispose of that first.”

— Elif Shafak

“God is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die.”

— Elif Shafak

“As I do next to all women who glow with this kind of femininity, I feel like an impostor, a poor imitation of my gender. To her, womanhood comes naturally, like a yawn or a sneeze, just as effortless. To me, womanhood is something I need to observe and study, learn and imitate, and still can never fully comprehend.”

— Elif Shafak

“Learn the truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths.”

— Elif Shafak

“But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master, which are written in stone.”

— Elif Shafak

“The past is anything but bygone”

— Elif Shafak

Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one's faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.

— Elif Shafak

“There was something in the color white that resembled silence. Both were emptied of life.”

— Elif Shafak

“One would expect writers and artists to understand one another better than anyone else and to be more appreciative of one another's works. That, sadly, is not always the case. Writers rarely say anything positive about each other.”

— Elif Shafak

“For the same reason, he believed that love had nothing to do with "plans for tomorrow" or "memories of yesterday." Love could only be here and now.”

— Elif Shafak

There were many words piled up inside my chest, stories waiting to be told. I wanted to hand all this knowledge to one other person, neither a master nor a disciple. I sought an equal - a companion.

— Elif Shafak

Let us choose one another as companions!
Let us sit at each other's feet!
Inwardly we have many harmonies - think not
That we are only what we see.

— Elif Shafak

“When something needs to be said, I'll say it even if the whole world grabs me by the neck and tells me to keep quiet.”

— Elif Shafak

“Religions are like rivers: they all flow to the same sea.”

— Elif Shafak

“She left her breast behind, the breast that covered her heart. And walked away.”

— Elif Shafak

“I know every single street in this town. And I love strolling these streets in the mornings, in the evenings, and then at night when I am merry and tipsy. I love to have breakfasts with my friends along the Bosphorus on Sundays, I love to walk alone amid the crowds. I am in love with the chaotic beauty of this city, the ferries, the music, the tales, the sadness, the colors, and the black humor ...”

— Elif Shafak

The past in an interpretation. The future is an illusion.

— Elif Shafak

“In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries. Like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders”

— Elif Shafak

“Only remember that cities, too, are like human beings. They are not made of stones and wood, solely. They are of flesh and bone. They bleed when they are hurt.
Every unlawful construction is a nail hammered into the heart of the Instambul. Remember to pity a wounded city the way you pity a wounded person.”

— Elif Shafak

“The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary.”

— Elif Shafak

“Love can only be perfected in pain.”

— Elif Shafak

“If you carry a sword, you obey the sword, not the other way round. Nobody can hold a weapon and keep their hands clear of blood at the same time.”

— Elif Shafak

“Sanity was a promised land, the Shangri-la she had been deported from as a teenager, and to which she intended to return to one day.”

— Elif Shafak

It is not up to us to judge and measure each other's devoutness.

— Elif Shafak

An aura surrounds every living thing, an aura in a different colour each time. Do you know what colour is yours?

— Elif Shafak

The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind.

— Elif Shafak

“Real filth is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.”

— Elif Shafak

“I have always clung, or maybe I wanted to cling, to bits and pieces of existence here and there, with no coherence, no center, no continuity in my life. There is a shorter way of saying this: I am a mess.”

— Elif Shafak

“Not every word is fit for every ear.”

— Elif Shafak

“About the great preacher. I wanted to see him through foreign eyes, kind and unkind, loving and unloving, before I looked on him with my own.”

— Elif Shafak

“Some people make the mistake of confusing "submission" with "weakness", whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.
I accepted the fact that there are things beyond my limits. I can only see some parts, like floating fragments from a movie, but the bigger scheme is beyond my comprehension.”

— Elif Shafak

“By and large over time, pain turns to grief, grief turns to silence, and silence turns to lonesomeness, as vast and bottomless as the dark oceans ... You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere.”

— Elif Shafak

“I wish I could look back and say that I have learned to love as much as I loved to learn. But if I like, there could be a cauldron boiling for me in hell tomorrow, and who can assure me tomorrow is not already on my doorstep, now that I am as old as an oak tree, and still not consigned to the grave?”

— Elif Shafak

“By and large over time, pain turns into grief, grief turns into silence, and silence turns into lonesomeness, as vast and bottomless as the dark oceans”

— Elif Shafak

“Ironically, [living in] communities of the like - minded is one of the greatest dangers of today ́s globalized world. And it ́s happening everywhere, among liberals and conservatives, agnostics and believers, the rich and the poor, East and West alike. We tend to form clusters based on similarity, and then we produce stereotypes about other clusters of people. In my opinion, one way of transcending these cultural ghettos is through the art of storytelling”

— Elif Shafak