Elif Safak Quotes

Every 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.

Stop running after the waves. Let the sea come to you.

Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters.

Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.

The 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. Do no harm. Practise compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone's back - not even seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouth do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man's pain will hurt us all. One man's joy will make everyone smile.

Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to life, old ones need to wither away.

Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.

I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.

Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.

A 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 more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. “Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! “The universe turns differently when fire loves water.

Bountiful is your life, full and complete. Or so you think, until someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul—the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be a lover, a friend, or a spiritual master. Sometimes it can be a child to look after. What matters is to find the soul that will complete yours. All the prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mirror!".

Whatever 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 only for you. Be thankful!

Loneliness 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 it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.

Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.

Where there is love, there is bound to be heartache.

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.

Even a speck of love should not go unappreciated, because, as Rumi said, love is the water of life.

What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere?

Personally, I didn't think there was anything wrong with sadness. Just the opposite – hypocrisy made people happy and truth made them sad.

Knowledge that takes you, not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance.

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.

If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

A saint belongs to all humanity.

To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.