246 Quotes by Elif Shafak

Working is prayer for the likes of us,” his master often said. “It’s the way we commune with God.”“Then how does He respond to us?” Jahan had once asked, way back when he was younger.“By giving us more work, of course.

Révéler ses secrets les uns après les autres avait aiguillonné son sentiment d'être isolée dans ce vaste monde.

It almost felt as if Istanbul had become a blissful metropolis, romantically picturesque, just like Paris, thought Zeliha; not that she had ever been to Paris.

Creativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don’t let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, “honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.” Good to remember…

He was losing his faith in his workmanship. 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.

Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.

No reason to feel depressed about being depressed. A depression can be a golden opportunity to collect the pieces and build ourselves anew. Global Souls are always on the move, nomads at heart, connected to various cities, commuters between cultures, both from here and everywhere.

Not only are the depressed in a different place but their relationship to time is also warped. Depression recognizes only one time slot-the past-and only one manner of speech: “If only.” People who are depressed have very little contact with the present moment. They live persistently in their memories, resurrecting all that has come and gone. Like a hamster on a wheel or a snake that has swallowed its tail, they are stuck in a roundabout of gloom

Is that what depression is about-the sinking feeling that your connection to God is broken and you are left to float on your own in a liquid black space, like an astronaut who has been cut loose from his spaceship and all that linked him to Earth?