Three Daughters Of Eve Quotes
"Everyone once said that Turkey had great potential – and look how that had turned out."
"To hurt and to be hurt – that was a human trait."
"Time, like a skilful tailor, had seamlessly stitched together the two fabrics that sheathed Peri’s life: what people thought of her and what she thought of herself."
"Madness coursed through this city’s streets, like an intoxicating drug in the bloodstream."
"If enough eyes experienced the same hallucination, it turned into a truth; if enough people laughed at the same misery, it became a funny little joke."
"Every day millions of Istanbulites downed another dose, not realizing that they were becoming more and more unbalanced."
"Theirs was a two-storey house, the colour of sour cherries."
"Religion had plummeted into their lives as unexpectedly as a meteor, and created a chasm, separating the family into two clashing camps."
"The thought that she had to make a choice, once and for all, between her mother’s defiant religiosity and her father’s defiant materialism almost paralysed her."
"She often felt the urge to grab a bucketful of soapy water and scrub the streets, the public squares, the government, the parliament, the bureaucracy."
"Never believe anything you haven’t seen with your eyes, heard with your ears, touched with your hands and grasped with your mind."
"Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse."
"In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close."
"It’s against my nature to do anything in the right order."
"Authority is like garlic: the more you use it, the heavier the smell."
"In my experience, authority is like garlic: the more you use it, the heavier the smell."
"In Europe, religion doesn’t try to dominate everything and everyone."
"Books are knowledge, knowledge is power."
"Science bloomed in al-Andalus. Who do you think invented algebra? Or the windmill? Or the toothbrush? Coffee? Vaccination? Shampoo?"
"If I were a woman, I’d be twice as critical of religion."
"An irrational covenant, for sure, but wasn’t every covenant with the Almighty bound to be so?"
"Some parts of the town felt so empty that the flaking limestone walls lining the ancient lanes seemed to ache for human attention."
"You’re a weird one. You’ll definitely survive at Oxford."
"There’s no wisdom without love. No love without freedom. And no freedom unless we dare to walk away from what we have become."
"When I look at you, I see a typical Oriental intellectual in the making. In love with Europe, at odds with her roots."
"You die, you go to paradise, end of story!"
"A good book was a good book and that was all that mattered."
"Doomed if you said ‘no’, doomed if you said ‘yes’. Either way, it was a no-win situation."
"I can love a woman, I can love a man. I don’t give a damn about labels."
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
"We have only three votes. Our driver’s brother in their village has eight children."
"If even roots refused to stay put, why expect the impossible from human beings?"
"The chasm between the person she carried inside and the one she was expected to be felt wider than ever."
"I should never marry a man from this part of the world."
"Their arctic love would swiftly melt in the heat of patriarchal customs."
"Their destination was an exclusive resort hotel on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, which had made a name for itself, and caused some controversy, through its creation of halal restaurants, halal pools and halal discos, all with gender-specific sections."
"Her parents’ marriage might not be all that it appeared to be, and her darling father not always the gentleman she believed he was."
"The history of the Christian Church was replete with counter examples."
"She could neither allow them to heal nor leave them alone."
"Religion fuels intolerance and that leads to hatred and that leads to violence."
"Nowhere is safe any more. I never thought I would say this, but maybe the West has now become more dangerous than the East."
"East, West, what difference does it make? No one can escape their kismet …"
"Changing my Fate! I’m going to live 100 years."
"She prayed for all the people killed in the Twin Towers."
"If you are still interested in my seminar, it begins next Thursday at 2 p.m. sharp!"
"My dad is Jewish, my mum is Protestant, both non-observant."
"The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts."
"Hello, everyone! Shalom Aleichem! Salamun Alaykum! Peace be with you! Namaste!"
"If I were to inform you that behind this door God awaits, you can’t see Him – or Her – but you can hear His voice, what would you want Him to tell you?"
"You don’t know what it feels like to be oppressed."
"The antidote to those jihadi freaks is the free market."
"There’s nothing to think about. College life is for freshers."
"Who says I need you to improve my religion?"
"Are we not entitled to a drop of pleasure?"
"We can find our true selves only in the faces of the Other."
"You probably think I’m a dreadful person and you’re considering dropping the seminar."
"We’ll make plurality out of singularity and complexity out of simplicity."
"Don’t bring anything. No flowers, no wine, no Turkish Delight, just yourself."
"Go like water, come back like water, my friend."
"Distrust charlatans, but not a real psychic."
"In the heart of winter, Shirin walked into Peri’s room, pulling a pink suitcase on wheels."
"We tear each other apart, but we’re kind to outsiders."
"We’re fishermen casting wide nets into the ocean of knowledge."
"Instead of tweeting her friends, she’d rather pin up her favourite poems on strings suspended across our bedroom."
"If I am a human, I should be big enough to feel for people everywhere."
"We’ll bring poetry into philosophy and philosophy straight into our daily lives."
"If there was a way, with the right cosmetics, to make it look thinner, she hadn’t a clue."
"Though he had been clear about not bringing anything, she had learned from her mother never to go anywhere empty-handed."
"Her gaze fell on the high hedge to her right. She froze, her heart accelerating."
"Strange it was that among the many kinds of obsession, hatred and love were only shades apart, like adjacent hues on an artist’s palate."
"If I had to make a choice, I might have opted out of having a memory too. I can’t wait to get Alzheimer’s."
"The more I read about him, the more I admired his personality. I find peace in my faith."
"What they all had in common was that each of them, for one reason or another, was about to celebrate the New Year alone – before Azur had intervened and collected them, like scattered shells on a remote beach."
"Her relationship with Islam, whether practising or not, had not expired. Her confusion was a continuing affair. Alive. Perpetual."
"She saw Moses pointing at a rod on the ground, half of which had been turned into a snake."
"Struggling to be happier was as futile as struggling to be taller."
One changes," said Peri. "I'm a mother, a wife... A housewife, a charity trustee! I throw parties for my husband's boss – exactly the kind of woman I always dreaded becoming. A modern version of my mother. And you know what? I like it – most of the time.
"How different they had been; how different they still were."
"If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?" - A quote mentioned by Azur in the story.
"When I met you, Peri, I thought, this girl doesn’t know it but she carries the three passions of Bertrand Russell: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable compassion for the suffering of mankind."
"I owe you an apology, Azur. I should have spoken in front of the committee."
"Between the yes and the no, spirits fly from their matter and minds from their bodies." - A reference to Ibn Arabi's teachings.
"He had opened up another dimension in her consciousness that, unknown to her, had been lying inert."
"I’ve hated you for so long, I’ve run out of hatred."
"When we fall in love we turn the other person into our god – how dangerous is that? And when he doesn’t love us back, we respond with anger, resentment, hatred…"