Top 450 Elif Shafak Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “Time is a songbird, and just like any other songbird it can be taken captive. It can be held prisoner in a cage and for even longer than you might think possible. But time cannot be kept in check in perpetuity. No captivity is forever.”

— Elif Shafak

352. “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.”

— Elif Shafak

353. “They didn’t hear her, but it was enough that GOD did.”

— Elif Shafak

354. “You were expected to believe in the State for the same reason you were expected to believe in God: fear. The bourgeoisie, despite its glamour and glitz, resembled a child afraid of its father –the eternal patriarch, the Baba. Amidst uncertainty, unlike their counterparts in Europe, the local bourgeoisie had neither audacity nor autonomy, neither tradition nor memory –squeezed between what they were expected to be and what they wished to be.”

— Elif Shafak

355. “But having spent my whole life regretting the things I failed to do, I see no harm in doing something regrettable for a change.”

— Elif Shafak

356. “Grown ups are not good at masking their concerns, although they can hide their delights and curiosity surprisingly well. Whereas with children it is the other way round. Children can tactfully mute their anxiety and conceal their sorrow, but will struggle not to express their. This is what growing up means, in some simple way: learning to repress all expressions of pre happiness and joy.”

— Elif Shafak

357. “Truth is a rhizome – an underground plant stem with lateral shoots. You need to dig deep to reach it and, once unearthed, you have to treat it with respect.”

— Elif Shafak

358. “Did she ever love me as much as much as I love her? I don’t think so. But I know she did love me in her own self-centered and self-destructive way.”

— Elif Shafak

359. “Creeping in menacingly, ticking like a pendulum clock that never winds down, it takes hold of you faster when you are part of an enclosed, homogenous unit.”

— Elif Shafak

360. “Books, like paper lanterns, provide us with a light amidst the fog.”

— Elif Shafak

361. “What i’m saying is, my friends, one ought to be able to let go. If a path does not please us, instead of insisting on going that specific way, of making our selfishness the guide, we ought to forsake. The books we cannot write, the films we cannot shoot, the projects we cannot develop, the jobs we cannot pursue and the people who no longer love us. Being able to let go, at times, is the most beautiful of all!”

— Elif Shafak

362. “Mensur looked rueful. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. When it comes to the Almighty, grown-ups are no less confused than kids.”

— Elif Shafak

363. “This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions, or tricks of other people. If somebody is setting a trap, remember, so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf stirs outside God’s knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does, He does beautifully.”

— Elif Shafak

364. “Truth cloaks herself.’ ‘Why would truth need to cloak herself?’ ‘Because if she were to walk about naked, people would stone her in the streets.”

— Elif Shafak

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

— Elif Shafak

366. “Europeans... Westerners... Russians... Arabs... If you were to get to know them, not as a category, but individually, then you would see how we are all, more or less, flesh and mind, the same. We can only recognize ourselves in the faces of... the Other.”

— Elif Shafak

367. “Behind all hardships was a larger scheme. I couldn’t make it out clearly, but I could feel it with my whole heart.”

— Elif Shafak

368. “How could meditation help you to quieten your mind when you needed to quieten your mind in order to meditate?”

— Elif Shafak

369. “The past is anything but bygone.”

— Elif Shafak

370. “A tourist couple – European by the look of them – were taking pictures in the courtyard of the mosque. The woman had covered her head with one of the long scarves provided at the entrance. Someone – perhaps a passer-by – must have warned her that her dress was too short; she had tied another scarf around her waist to cover her legs above the knee. The man, by contrast, had sandals and Bermuda shorts apparently no one had seen as a problem.”

— Elif Shafak

371. “There was something frighteningly dangerous in the expectation that someone had the answer to most of our questions, and that through that person was a shortcut to all that was left unsolved henceforth.”

— Elif Shafak

372. “Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. in life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly’s wings.”

— Elif Shafak

373. “Humans tell their children to paint the earth in one colour alone. They imagine the sky in blue, the grass in green, the sun in yellow, and the earth entirely in brown. If only they knew they have rainbows under their feet.”

— Elif Shafak

374. “First you meet someone – someone who is completely different from everyone around you. Someone who sees everything in a different light and forces you to shift, change your angle of vision, observe everything anew, within and without. You think you can keep a safe distance from him. You think you can navigate your way through this beautiful storm until you realize, much too suddenly, you are thrust out into the open and in fact, you control nothing.”

— Elif Shafak

375. “At night we heard the howling of the gale and it brought to mind things untamed and unbidden, things within each of us that we were not yet ready to face, let alone comprehend.”

— Elif Shafak

376. “Granting an equal vote to the ignorant is like handing matches to a toddler.”

— Elif Shafak

377. “The emperor did not hide his disappointment. “Are you the one Majnun has been crazy about? Why, you look so ordinary. What is so special about you?” Layla broke into a smile. “Yes, I am Layla. But you are not Majnun,” she answered. “You have to see me with the eyes of Majnun. Otherwise you could never solve this mystery called love.”

— Elif Shafak

378. “Yesterday I was a river. Tomorrow, I may return as a raindrop.”

— Elif Shafak

379. “Peki ya diger renkler diye sormak istemis. Eflatunlar, turuncular menekseler... Ya diger kumaslar? Pazenler, basmalar, ipekler, kadifeler... Ne demeye siyah beyaza indiriyorduk su alemi, bu kadar cesitli yaratmisken Yaradan?”

— Elif Shafak

380. “The ear never forgets what the heart has heard.”

— Elif Shafak

381. “In the sheltered bosom of faith, one found the answers by letting go of the questions; one advanced by surrendering.”

— Elif Shafak

382. “What we are going through is also a crisis of meanings.”

— Elif Shafak

383. “Lately she had decided to purge certain words from her vocabulary and now that she recalled that decision, why not start with the word shame.”

— Elif Shafak

384. “Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire – because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind – when people hate those they have hurt.”

— Elif Shafak

385. “She left her breast behind, the breast that covered her heart. And walked away.”

— Elif Shafak

386. “Humans are strange that way, full of contradictions. It’s as if they need to hate and exclude as much as they need to love and embrace.”

— Elif Shafak

387. “We learn to accept there’ll always be something amiss, something broken, and unless we are kind to ourselves it won’t change, this feeling of incompleteness.”

— Elif Shafak

388. “She had come to learn that the English had an indirect way of expressing their opinions. Unlike the Turks, they did not communicate resentment through resentment or anger through double anger. No, there were layers to their conversation; the deepest discomfort could be conveyed with a reticent smile. They complemented, when in truth they wished to denounce; they clothed their criticisms in cryptic praise.”

— Elif Shafak

389. “Once we have witnessed the suffering, the injustice, the immorality, what do we do next? Do we tell our eyes to forget what they have seen, tell our mouths to not whisper a word, tell our hearts to go numb, slowly? Or de we choose to speak up, speak out, connect, organise, mobilese and demand justice until justice is served?”

— Elif Shafak

390. “It is perhaps easier to justify the end of a relationship – both to yourself and to others – when there is a definite, tangible cause, no matter how painful. But it is harder to grasp the gradual evaporation of love, a loss so slow and subtle as to be barely detectable, until it is fully gone.”

— Elif Shafak

391. “East, West, South or North makes little difference. No matter what your destination, just be sure to make every journey, a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond.”

— Elif Shafak

392. “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.”

— Elif Shafak

393. “Article Two: The overwhelming majority of people never think and those who think never become the overwhelming majority. Choose your side.”

— Elif Shafak

394. “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

— Elif Shafak

395. “Nalan thought that one of the endless tragedies of human history was that pessimists were better at surviving than optimists, which mean that, logically speaking, humanity carried the genes of people who did not believe in humanity.”

— Elif Shafak

396. “It doesn’t occur to him that we are drawn to the kind of stories that are already present within us, germinating and pushing their way through to the surface, like seeds ready to sprout at the first hint of sun.”

— Elif Shafak

397. “One of the rules says, You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover. There is no one who has lived after seeing Him, just like there is no one who has died after seeing Him. Whoever finds Him will remain with Him forever.”

— Elif Shafak

398. “Home is where your absence is felt, the echo of your voice kept alive, no matter how long you have been away or how far you may have strayed, a place that still beats with the pulse of your heart.”

— Elif Shafak

399. “But you’re mistaken about me. If you only knew how difficult it is to be calm and composed. If you only knew, it takes a fierce fight inside to remain peaceful on the outside.”

— Elif Shafak

400. “It is never too late to ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?’ Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death.”

— Elif Shafak