6 Quotes by Etaf Rum

Too often being happy means being passive or playing it safe. There's no skill required in happiness, no strength of character, nothing extraordinary. Its discontent that drives creation the most--passion, desire, defiance. Revolutions don't come from a place of happiness. If anything, I think it's sadness, or discontent at least, that's at the root of everything beautiful.

Sadness was like a cancer, she thought, a presence that staked it's claim so quietly you might not even notice it until it was too late. She hoped her other daughters didn't see.

It's the loneliest people who love books the most...it was the opposite of loneliness, too, like there were too many people around me, forced connections, that I needed a little isolation to think on my own, to be my own person.

It’s hard to belong anywhere, truly belong, if we don’t belong to ourselves first.

She knew she had to teach them how to love themselves, that this was the only way they had a chance at happiness. Only she didn't see how she could when the world pressed shame into women like pillows into their faces. She wanted to save her daughters from her fate, but she couldn't seem to find a way out.

Her powerlessness even comforted her somehow. Knowing that she couldn't change things - that she didn't have a choice - made living it more bearable.