246 Quotes by 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.

Let us choose one another as companions!Let us sit at each other's feet!Inwardly we have many harmonies - think notThat we are only what we see.

Once again she had spent all her monthly savings on books! She was a true bookworm, not a promising feature at all given that it had zero value in the eyes of a boy.

Most of the time he who complains about others is himself at fault.

When you kill someone, something from that person passes to you - a sigh, a smell or a gesture. I call it "the curse of the victim." It clings to your body and seeps into your skin, going all the way into your heart, and thus continues to live within you. I carry with me the traces of all the men I have killed. I wear them around my neck like invisible necklaces, feeling their presence against my flesh, tight and heavy. In every murderer breathes the man he murdered.

Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.

God created sufferings so that joy might appear through its opposite. Things become manifest through opposites. Since God has no opposite, He remains hidden.

Earth: the things that are solid, absorbed and still.Water: the things that are fluid, changing and unpredictable.Wind: the things that shift, evolve and challenge.Fire: the things that damage, devastate and distroy.The void: the things that are present through their absence

The past is a whirlpool. If you let it dominate your present moment, it will suck you in.