Top 380 Elif Shafak Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.”

— Elif Shafak

152. “The silence diffused outwards into the air; spreading and congealing into an ugly and uneven thickness, stagnant like algae forming on a late-summer pond.”

— Elif Shafak

153. “People assume it’s a matter of personality, the difference between optimists and pessimists. But I believe it all comes down to an inability to forget. The greater your powers of retention, the slimmer your chances at optimism.”

— Elif Shafak

154. “She had always known that they did not connect on any deep level, but connecting emotionally need not be a priority on a married couple’s list, she thought, especially for a man and a woman who had been married for so long. There were more important things than passion and love in a marriage, such as understanding, affection, compassion, and that most godlike act a person could perform, forgiveness. Love was secondary to any of these.”

— Elif Shafak

155. “If only time never came to its senses. If somehow it wouldn’t succeed in walking a straight line. If it would only lurch, behave nonsensically, fall to pieces. And we would watch, and, condemning its actions, would never have to refer to it again.”

— Elif Shafak

156. “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?”

— Elif Shafak

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

— Elif Shafak

158. “Superstitions are the shadows of fears unknown.”

— Elif Shafak

159. “In badly fractured societies that have lost their appreciation of diversity and their regard for pluralism, opponents will be seen as enemies, politics will become replete with marital metaphors and anyone who thinks and speaks differently will be labeled as a ‘traitor’.”

— Elif Shafak

160. “The dervish calmly responded, “Yes, but I know myself, and believe me, it would have been much worse if it were the other way round.” As long as I knew myself, I would be all right. Whosoever knows himself, knows the One.”

— Elif Shafak

161. “Listen, canim, I know you might get cross with me for saying this, but remember, good advice is always annoying and bad advice never is. So if what I say irritates you, take it as good advice.”

— Elif Shafak

162. “We must strive to become intellectual nomads, keep moving, keep learning, resist confining ourselves in any cultural or mental ghetto, and spend more time not in select centres but at the margins, which is where real change always comes from.”

— Elif Shafak

163. “Play now! Be friends!” Being of the same age group automatically meant getting along well; somehow peers were regarded as the broken pieces of the same puzzle, expected to suddenly make it complete when brought side by side.”

— Elif Shafak

164. “The person who is openly loved by someone who is admired by so many people is bound to draw the envy, if not the hatred, of others.”

— Elif Shafak

165. “God was a maze without a map, a circle without a centre; the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that never seemed to fit together. If only she could solve this mystery, she could bring meaning to senselessness, reason to madness, order to chaos, and perhaps, too, she could learn to be happy.”

— Elif Shafak

166. “Believers favour answers over questions, clarity over uncertainty. Athiests, more or less the same. Funny, when it comes to God, Whom we know next to nothing about, very few of us actually say, ‘I don’t know.”

— Elif Shafak

167. “Petite-Ma retained a most special place in Asya’s heart. She loved her dearly. Unlike some others in the family, Petite-Ma had always been capable of loving without suffocating. She would never nag or nitpick or sting. Her protectiveness was not possessive.”

— Elif Shafak

168. “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

169. “We’re all what we are. And we’re all subject to change. It is a journey from here to there.”

— Elif Shafak

170. “Perhaps nothing was worth worrying about in a city where everything was constantly shifting and dissolving, and the only thing they could ever rely on was this moment in time, which was already half gone.”

— Elif Shafak

171. “Knowledge requires reading. Books. In-depth analyses. Investigative journalism. Then there is wisdom, which connects the mind and the heart, activates emotional intelligence, expands empathy. For that we need stories and storytelling.”

— Elif Shafak

172. “So I guess it is in my genes, this melancholy I can never quite shake off. Carved with an invisible knife into my arborescent skin.”

— Elif Shafak

173. “Whatever you do, she would have said, don’t hurt anyone and don’t let anyone hurt you. Be neither a heartbreaker nor heartbroken.”

— Elif Shafak

174. “Slowly, dawn was breaking. Streaks of colour – peach bellinis, orange martinis, strawberry margaritas, frozen negronis – streamed above the horizon, east to west.”

— Elif Shafak

175. “Stones stay still. A learner, never.”

— Elif Shafak

176. “My hijab has never got in the way of my independence.”

— Elif Shafak

177. “If truth be told, if from time to time you do not catch yourself overwhelmed with worry and indecision, demoralised and exhausted, or even incandescent, maybe you are not really following what is going on – here, there and everywhere.”

— Elif Shafak

178. “But it wasn’t enough. Whatever I did, I could not rid my mind of the thought that he didn’t love me. I had no doubt that he liked me and meant me well. But this wasn’t anything even close to love. So harrowing was this thought that it was eating me up inside, gnawing at my body and soul.”

— Elif Shafak

179. “Even trees of different species show solidarity with one another regardless of their differences, which is more than you can say for so many humans.”

— Elif Shafak

180. “The past is a whirlpool. If you let it dominate your present moment, it will suck you in,” said Shams as if he had read my thoughts. “Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters.”

— Elif Shafak

181. “If wanting to be heard is one side of the coin, the other side is being willing to listen.”

— Elif Shafak

182. “People from troubled islands can never be normal. We can pretend, we can even make amazing progress – but we can never really learn to feel safe. The ground that feels rock hard to others is choppy waters for our kind.”

— Elif Shafak

183. “Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for.”

— Elif Shafak

184. “Sometimes family trauma skips a generation altogether and redoubles its hold on the following one. You may encounter grandchildren who silently shoulder the hurts and sufferings of their grandparents.”

— Elif Shafak

185. “When all is destroyed, pessimists are the first to flee the area, probably; the optimists would choose to wait and see how things would turn out. One of the endless tragedies of human history is that pessimists are better at surviving than optimists, which meant that, logically speaking, humanity carries the genes of people who did not believe in humanity.”

— Elif Shafak

186. “Of three things in this life she expected no good: a man who had sold his soul to Sheitan; a woman proud of her beauty; and the news that could not wait till the morning to be delivered.”

— Elif Shafak

187. “Where do you start someone’s story when life has more then one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning, nor is death exactly an end.”

— Elif Shafak

188. “Trees might not have eyes but we have vision.”

— Elif Shafak

189. “She was the youngest of four girls who could not agree on anything but retained an identical conviction of always being right, and feeling each had nothing to learn from the others but lots to teach.”

— Elif Shafak

190. “Each and every reader comprehends the Holy Qur’an on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insights. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. Next is the Batini – the inner level. Third, there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribable.”

— Elif Shafak

191. “Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven as they are both present inside this very moment. Why worry so much about the aftermath, an imaginary future, when this very moment is the only time we can truly and fully experience the presence and absence of God in our lives? Motivated by neither the fear of punishment nor the desire to be rewarded in heaven, Sufis love God simply because they love him.”

— Elif Shafak

192. “Before leaving the hall for the stage, Rumi recited a poem, “With your grace, grief turns to joy. With your praise, life becomes infinite. Although love is a trouble, it is a joy. Though this wine is full of headaches, still it delights. Though being occupied with love is difficult, how sweet it is to trade hearts with you, oh beloved.”

— Elif Shafak

193. “If God was with you all along, why did you rummage around this whole time in search of Him? Because although it is a fact that He cannot be found by seeking, only those who seek can find Him.”

— Elif Shafak

194. “From a man getting ready to die, he had turned into a man falling in love at a most unexpected time. Suddenly all the pieces that he thought he’d long ago put into place had to be moved. Spirituality, life, family, mortality, faith, and love- he found himself rethinking their meanings again and not wanting to die.”

— Elif Shafak

195. “Little did she yet understand that the end of childhood comes not when a child’s body changes with puberty, but when her mind is finally able to see her life through the eyes of an outsider.”

— Elif Shafak

196. “The sharia is like a candle,” said Shams of Tabriz. “It provides us with much valuable light. But let us not forget that a candle helps us to go from one place to another in the dark. If we forget where we are headed and instead concentrate on the candle, what good is it?”

— Elif Shafak

197. “You see, there are two kinds: the surface and the deep water. Now, Aphrodite emerged from foam, remember? Foam love is a nice feeling, but just as superficial. When it’s gone, it’s gone, nothing remains. Always aim for the kind of love that comes from the deep.”

— Elif Shafak

198. “If wanting to be heard is one side of the coin, the other side is being willing to listen. The two are inextricably connected. When convinced that no one – especially those in places of power and privilege – is really paying attention to our protests and demands we will be less inclined to listen to others, particularly to people whose views differ from ours.”

— Elif Shafak

199. “Family stories intermingle in such ways that what happened generations ago can have an impact on seemingly irrelevant developments of the present day. The past is anything but bygone.”

— Elif Shafak

200. “There’s no such thing as a small god. Once somebody starts playing God, sooner or later, things will get out of hand.”

— Elif Shafak