Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Elif Safak
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: October 25
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Straßburg
Elif Shafak
Moments
Forty
Past
Remain
Mind
Eternal
Present
Within
Future
Moment
Experience
Illumination

More quotes by Elif Safak

Image
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 Safak
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness
Elif Safak
Image
I 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 ages: to naively think that with their love they can change the man they love.
Elif Safak
Image
The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.
Elif Safak
Image
What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?
Elif Safak
Image
Hell is in the here and now. So is Heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside us this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.
Elif Safak
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I 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 ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others.” (p. 257).
Elif Safak
Image
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
Image
A saint belongs to all humanity.
Elif Safak
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters.
Elif Safak
Image
Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?
Elif Safak
Image
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
Image
I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.
Elif Safak