Quote

We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same. He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme.

Elif Safak

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Elif Safak
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: October 25
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Straßburg
Elif Shafak
Made
Holy
Beat
Would
Differences
Beats
People
Everyone
Image
Tantamount
Others
Hearts
Imposing
Two
Created
Scheme
Wanted
Unique
Schemes
Different
Therefore
Alike
Heart
Thoughts
Rhythm

More quotes by Elif Safak

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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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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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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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Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters.
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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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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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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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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I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.
Elif Safak
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If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.
Elif Safak
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Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness
Elif Safak
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Sometimes I feel I have more faith in European ideals than some of my British or French friends. For them, it's a financial burden. For me, Europe is primarily about values, about fundamental rights, freedom, women's rights.
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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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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The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.
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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perhaps it took a stranger to make a woman like her speak her mind.
Elif Safak
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I see two opposite tendencies in Turkish society: people feel demoralized, they lose the interest in politics and retreat to their private lives or they become very angry and even more politicized, and radicalized. Both trends are troublesome.
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