“Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I’ve read a book, I don’t feel like I’ve finished anything. So I start a new one.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find someone who is willing to date so many people in one person.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“We’re stuck. We’re stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“It is so demanding to be born into a house full of women, where everyone loves you so overwhelmingly that they end up suffocating with their love; a house where you, as the only child, have to be more mature than all the adults around….”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn’t accomplish in life…..”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“From birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Men are incapable of being alone.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in different directions, you cannot put it back together.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then practice the art of becoming. If you have no reason or ability to practice the art of becoming, then just be. If you don’t have any reason or ability to just be, then endure.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“It’s no good to be in between.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“Was it really better for human beings to discover more of their pasts? And then more and more…? Or was it simply better to know as little of the past as possible and even to forget what small amount was remembered?”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“From her he had learned two fundamental things about love: first, that unlike what the romantics so pompously argued, love was more a gradual course than a sudden blossoming at first sight, and second, that he was capable of loving.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Don’t underestimate the good in you.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“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.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“In resistance lies the key to life.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“She yearned for success in multiple tasks in life and ended up accomplishing none.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“If you cannot find a reason to love the life you are living, do not pretend to love the life you are living.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“When you didn’t tell anyone the extraordinary, everyone assumed the normal.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Sometimes, absence is actually a bond and distance can help you to look closer.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“The soul needs to shiver to wake up.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“All she wanted was to lie in bed saturated in despair and read the novels she had purchased. Read and read until her nose bled and her eyes drooped. That was all she wanted.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Too many to care for so as to end up not caring for anyone.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Don’t forget that your mind is a stranger at nights. Don’t talk to strangers.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Whatever falls from the sky above, thou shall not curse it. That includes the rain.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“Is there a way to grasp what love means without becoming a lover first? Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Literature needs freedom to thrive.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Minorities tore themselves apart from the larger entity at a great cost, only to create their own oppressors.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“The ear was such a trustworthy part of the human body. No matter how much weight you gained, your ears remained exactly the same, always loyal.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“The oppressor has no use for the past. The oppressed has nothing but the past.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul quotes by Elif Shafak
“Love loves power. That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“Though she liked it here…she also couldn’t help feeling that something was absent here, that a part of her identity was missing and without it she couldn’t start living her own life.”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
“God’s creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn’t remember and you could remember what you shouldn’t tell….”
-The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
