our ancestors breathe through our children

“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.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Perhaps 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 person.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“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.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“We'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, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Ways 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 clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after `more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“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.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“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....
But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn't accomplish in life.....
As a result, I had to work my butt off to fulfill all their dreams at the same time.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul