Elif SafakWhatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path … ▶364LifeLoveReading
Elif SafakDo not go with the flow. Be the flow. ✨ The Forty Rules of Love. Book by Elif Safak, June 2, 2011.365LoveReading
Elif SafakEither grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.366Truth
Elif SafakStop running after the waves. Let the sea come to you.356Reflection
Elif SafakThe world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity … ▶378HopeTime
Elif SafakI see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us. (…) we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on … ▶378Thought
Elif SafakWhat is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?379Thought
Elif SafakBut let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die3710DeathHumanity
Elif SafakBecause 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.3710Time
Elif SafakWhat 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,… ▶325HumanityLoveReading
Elif SafakCreativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don't let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, honest criticism and sen… ▶347Truth
Elif SafakWe're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed,… ▶348HopePoliticsTime
Elif SafakWe cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.359Hope
Elif SafakI slept peacefully that night, feeling exultant and determined. Little did I know that I was making the most common and the most painful mistake women have made all throughout the… ▶359LoveSadnessThought
Elif SafakIsn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?305HumanityReading
Elif SafakA life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western. Divisions only lead to mo… ▶261LifeLove
Elif SafakNo matter who we are or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It's like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never … ▶316Philosophy
Elif SafakHow we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see G… ▶305LoveReflectionThought
Elif SafakLoneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as i… ▶338LoveReading
Elif SafakWays of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato … ▶262LoveThoughtTruth
Elif SafakThe universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. D… ▶339LoveSadnessTime
Elif SafakEvery true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.262LoveTruth
Elif SafakNo reason to feel depressed about being depressed. A depression can be a golden opportunity to collect the pieces and build ourselves anew. Global Souls are always on the move, no… ▶329Love
Elif SafakI like to borrow a metaphor from the great poet and mystic Rumi who talks about living like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static. It is fixed and rooted in a certai… ▶286HumanityLifeTime
Elif SafakIdentity politics divides us. Fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations. The other, in nuances. One draws boundaries. The other recognizes no frontiers. Iden… ▶233Politics
Elif SafakYeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, s… ▶233Politics
Elif SafakIf you want to destroy something in this life, be it an acne, a blemish or the human soul, all you need to do is to surround it with thick walls. It will dry up inside. ✨ Th… ▶277HumanityLifePolitics
Elif SafakKnowledge that takes you, not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance. ✨ The politics of fiction. TED Talk, www.ted.com. July 2010.256Politics
Elif SafakGod is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without except… ▶267DeathLoveTime
Elif SafakPerhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one perso… ▶2810HumanityTime
