246 Quotes by Elif Shafak

Isn’t connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?

The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness.

Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to life, old ones need to wither away.

If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one person.

Love exists within each of us from the moment we are born and waits to be discovered from then on.

I believe in optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect. But my hope is the people, the society, which is ahead of the government.

Turkey in general became too involved with what is happening in Egypt and in Syria. Some politicians with neo-Ottoman dreams developed this idea of being a major player in the Middle East, which hasn’t gone as expected.

After the Ankara bombings on October 10, people were asked to hold a minute of silence, but many refused. Our society can’t even unite in grief to honor the victims. We’ve lost our empathy. That’s maybe the worst.