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Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?

Elif Safak

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Elif Safak
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: October 25
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Straßburg
Elif Shafak
Distant
Land
Literature
Culture
Good
People
Lands
Strengths
Connecting

More quotes by Elif Safak

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Identity politics divides us. Fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations. The other, in nuances. One draws boundaries. The other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks. Fiction is flowing water.
Elif Safak
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What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?
Elif Safak
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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.
Elif Safak
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If 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.
Elif Safak
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Words are heavy in Turkey, and every writer, every poet and every journalist knows that, because of a word, because of a sentence, because of a tweet or even a retweet, you can be sued, you can be demonized by the media and you can even land in prison.
Elif Safak
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Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls, and through those holes we can get a glimpse of the other and sometimes even like what we see.
Elif Safak
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I believe in optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect. But my hope is the people, the society, which is ahead of the government.
Elif Safak
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Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission. A power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquility and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.
Elif Safak
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How 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 God as full of love and compassion, so are we.
Elif Safak
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Our politics is very masculine, very aggressive, and it's very polarizing. And the pace of this development has increased in recent years. Erdogan is, in my eyes, the most polarizing politician in recent Turkish political history.
Elif Safak
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Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to life, old ones need to wither away.
Elif Safak
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The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.
Elif Safak
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perhaps it took a stranger to make a woman like her speak her mind.
Elif Safak
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I remember a time when it was ok to make fun of politicians and powerful people. Now, it's not ok anymore. We've forgotten how to laugh.
Elif Safak
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But 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 die
Elif Safak
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No 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 find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.
Elif Safak
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Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness
Elif Safak
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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 Safak
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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 Safak
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No 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, nomads at heart, connected to various cities, commuters between cultures, both from here and everywhere.
Elif Safak