It is a map, the body of an ex-lover, pulling you into its depths and bringing you back to a part of yourself that you thought had been left behind sometime, somewhere. It is a mirror too, though, chipped and cracked, showing all the ways you have changed; and, like every mirror, it dreams of becoming whole again.
Mensur looked rueful. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret. When it comes to the Almighty, grown-ups are no less confused than kids.
People who have much to say, a distinctive story to tell, often do not do so because they fear their words will fall on deaf ears. They feel excluded from political power and, to a large extent, from political and civic participation. Even if they were to shout their grievances from the rooftops of Westminster – or Brussels or Washington or New Delhi – they doubt it would have the slightest impact on public policy.
The places where we were born are the shape of our lives, even when we are away from them.
I listened to her with respect, knowing what resilient migrants they are, seen almost everywhere across the globe. They can fly for an impressive 2,500 miles. I have never understood why humans regard butterflies as fragile. Optimists they may be, but fragile, never!
He would never have dared to call this thing he felt for Mihrimah love, and yet when it was uttered, unveiled, by someone else, he carefully picked up the word and hugged it to his chest, not willing to let go.
Sooner or later we were destined to meet. And when we did, I would learn why his kind hazel eyes were eternally sad and how I came to be murdered on an early-spring night.
A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference.
If truth be told, if from time to time you do not catch yourself overwhelmed with worry and indecision, demoralised and exhausted, or even incandescent, maybe you are not really following what is going on – here, there and everywhere.
It seems to me, more and more, we are pain, and hurt, and loneliness covered with skin.
What would we do, each of us, if we were young people in 1930s Burgos, caught up in the midst of civil war? It’s easy to claim in hindsight we’d do the right thing. But, in truth, none of us knows where we would be when the fire is raging.
Unlike what nationalist demagogues claim, belonging is not a once-and-for-all condition, a static identity tattooed on our skin; it is a constant self-examination and dynamic revision of where we are, who we are, and where we want to be.
How women could be expected to keep their heads down and simultaneously have their eyes open in all directions was beyond Peri.
Slowly, dawn was breaking. Streaks of colour – peach bellinis, orange martinis, strawberry margaritas, frozen negronis – streamed above the horizon, east to west.
In resistance lies the key to life.
Those who surround themselves with grovellers who praise everything they do will not forgive the honest man who tells the truth.
She had come to learn that the English had an indirect way of expressing their opinions. Unlike the Turks, they did not communicate resentment through resentment or anger through double anger. No, there were layers to their conversation; the deepest discomfort could be conveyed with a reticent smile. They complemented, when in truth they wished to denounce; they clothed their criticisms in cryptic praise.
I’d rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other reason than love.
Maybe we give other names to grief because we are too scared to call it by its name.
On the Sufi path, first you discover the art of being alone amid the crowd. Next you discover the crowd within your solitude – the voices inside you.