Top 380 Elif Shafak Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one’s faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.”

— Elif Shafak

352. “I am not saying that fiction has the magnitude of an earthquake, but when we are inside a good novel we leave our cozy, small apartments behind and, through fictional characters, find ourselves getting to know people we had never met before, and perhaps had even disliked as our Others.”

— Elif Shafak

353. “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

354. “He would never have dared to call this thing he felt for Mihrimah love, and yet when it was uttered, unveiled, by someone else, he carefully picked up the word and hugged it to his chest, not willing to let go.”

— Elif Shafak

355. “No one should try to philosophize on the nature of humanity until they had worked in a public toilet for a couple of weeks and.”

— Elif Shafak

356. “Some day this pain will be useful to you.”

— Elif Shafak

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

— Elif Shafak

358. “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

359. “I’ll come to the island,’ Ada said, a new note in her voice. ‘I just want to meet islanders, like myself.”

— Elif Shafak

360. “I can tell you one thig about humans: they will react to the disappearance of a species the way they react to everything else – by putting themselves at the center of the universe.”

— Elif Shafak

361. “The only professed atheist among Leila’s friends, Nalan saw the flesh – and not some abstract concept of the soul – as eternal. Molecules mixed with soil, providing nutrition for plants, those plants were then devoured by animals, and animals by humans, and so, contrary to the assumptions of the majority, the human body was immortal, on a never-ending journey through the cycles of nature. What more could one possibly want from the hereafter?”

— Elif Shafak

362. “Someone who plants in your heart a lifetime of things so pleasant yet so minute you don’t realize how much you have come to depend on them until you lose them all.”

— Elif Shafak

363. “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

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

— Elif Shafak

365. “The creature who arrived at your door, having bitten the hand that fed him all along, would not hesitate to sink his teeth into your flesh once he was inside.”

— Elif Shafak

366. “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

367. “A hushed concentration permeated his movements, and his eyes watched her intently, oblivious to everything else, as though she was, and had always been, the centre of the world.”

— Elif Shafak

368. “When I met you, Peri, I thought this girl doesn’t know it but she carries the three passion of Bertrand Russel: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable compassion for the suffering of mankind.”

— Elif Shafak

369. “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

370. “Sea love seeks sea beauty. And you, my heart, deserve sea love, the strong and profound and enchanting type.”

— Elif Shafak

371. “I don’t think I’ll ever become a real writer and that’s quite all right now. I’ve reached an age at which I’m more at peace with my limitations and failures.”

— Elif Shafak

372. “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

373. “The question ‘where are you from?’ has always mattered to me, and felt deeply personal, albeit equally complicated. For a long time it was the one question I dreaded being asked. ‘I am from multiple places,’ I wanted to be able to say in return. ‘I come from many cities and cultures, plural and diverse, but I am also from the ruins and remnants of these, from the memories and forgettings, from the stories and silences.”

— Elif Shafak

374. “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

375. “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

376. “There were many odd things about human beings. They thought insects were disgusting but felt lucky when a ladybird landed on their fingers. They detested rats but loved squirrels. While they found vultures repulsive, they thought eagles impressive. They despised mosquitoes and flies, but were fond of fire-flies. Even though copper and iron were medicinally important, it was gold that they worshipped instead. They took no notice of the stones under their feet but went mad for polished gems.”

— Elif Shafak

377. “But human memory resembles a late-night reveller who has had a few too many drinks: hard as it tries, it just cannot follow a straight line. It staggers through a maze of inversions, often moving in dizzying zigzags, immune to reason and liable to collapse altogether.”

— Elif Shafak

378. “In a world that is ever shifting and unpredictable, I’ve come to believe it is totally fine not to feel fine. It is perfectly okay not be okay. If truth be told, if from time to time, you do not catch yourself overwhelmed and exhausted, or even incandescent, maybe you are not really following what is going on – here, there and everywhere.”

— Elif Shafak

379. “To her way of thinking, anyone who can’t rise up and rebel, anyone devoid of the ability to dissent, cannot really be said to be alive. In resistance lies the key to life. The rest of the people fall into two camps: the vegetables, who are fine with everything, and the tea glasses, who, thought not fine with numerous things, lack the strength to confront. It is the latter that are the worse of the two.”

— Elif Shafak

380. “Seven days a week we are forced to contend with bleak feelings, thought rarely do we have the time or the will to give them serious consideration.”

— Elif Shafak

381. “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

382. “How could they be so certain of the superiority of their truths when they knew so little, if anything at all, about other cultures, other philosophies, other ways of thinking?”

— Elif Shafak