Elif Safak Quotes

I find families intriguing, perhaps because I did not grow up in one. I was raised by a feminist, independent, single mother, a divorcee.

Elif Safak

• Up
• Mother
• Single
• Independent
• Feminist

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• Everything always looked better in black and white. Everything always looked as if it were the first time; there's always more people in a black and white photograph. It just makes it seem that there were more people at a gig, more people at a football match, than with colour photography. Everything looks more exciting.

  

  Jack Lowden
  • People
  • Time
  • Black

• More modern poetry is written than read.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Poetry
  • More
  • Modern

• I've spoken with friends who are rabbis and priests and we've agreed that most people have an emotional attachment to their faith, a desire to fulfill their spiritual longings, but they are not experts in understanding the history of their religion.

  

  Feisal Abdul Rauf
  • People
  • Friends
  • History

• Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

  

  Jackie Chan
  • Superman
  • Nobody
  • Anyone

• Fiction about mining has a long tradition - Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and Upton Sinclair's 'King Coal' come to mind - and most readers will be aware of the industry's harsh conditions.

  

  Floyd Skloot
  • Long
  • Mind
  • King

• There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

  

  M. Night Shyamalan
  • Alone
  • Looking
  • U.S.

• You need to make a trip to Des Moines in August, because the Iowa State Fair really is a sight to see. The Iowa Fairgrounds are usually packed for those 11 days, and you get a real sense of what a classic Midwest fair is all about.

  

  Zach Johnson The Fray
  • Real
  • You
  • Need

• The idea would be in my mind - and I know it sounds strange - is that the most important advances in medicine would be made not by new knowledge in molecular biology, because that's exceeding what we can even use. It'll be made by mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, figuring out a way to get all that information together.

  

  Patrick Soon-Shiong
  • Important
  • Mind
  • Together

• Glamour is about feeling good in your own skin.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Good
  • Feeling
  • Own

• Fans can never accuse R. Kelly of doing the same thing; I keep mixing it up.

  

  R. Kelly
  • Up
  • Never
  • Doing

• Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.

  

  Karl Kraus
  • World
  • Children
  • Education

• Words can hurt you. In the larger world, it frames how people think about you, and it can hurt you in lots of little, subtle ways.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • People
  • World
  • Words

• If I'm saying a universal truth, but maybe it's something that people don't feel comfortable saying... It's a strange take, but at the same time, what you're hitting on is kind of right. You can relate. That's the heart of comedy. You have to have a point of view. You gotta commit. And the more you commit to it, sometimes the funnier it gets.

  

  Vince Vaughn
  • People
  • Time
  • Heart

• All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings, we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.

  

  Abbas Kiarostami
  • Life
  • World
  • Different

• Naw, it - it never stops, man... You gotta be doing what you're supposed to be doing - whenever, however it's coming down, you know. If you're getting your butt kicked - you still gotta do what you gotta be doing.

  

  Henry Saint Clair Fredericks
  • Man
  • Know
  • Doing

• I have a lightsaber at my front door for home protection. I have an 800-watt electric skateboard that I use to run errands in my neighborhood. It can go about six, seven miles, so depending on how much time I have, and how much I have to carry home, I'll take it really far. I love that thing.

  

  Nathan Fillion
  • Time
  • Home
  • Protection

• It is always your next move.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • Always
  • Move
  • Next

• If we could create invention capitalism, that would be a helluva legacy, that would be a helluva thing to do... We could actually turbocharge the rate at which the world invents things.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • World
  • Legacy
  • Capitalism

• They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

  

  R. D. Laing
  • Game
  • Play
  • Games

• My enemy said to me, 'Love your enemy.' And I obeyed him and loved myself.

  

  Kahlil Gibran
  • Enemy

• We're not very accepting of people who act strangely.

  

  Chester Brown
  • People

• My mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended, she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.

  

  Lionel Blue
  • She
  • Mother
  • Dance

• I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.

  

  Banana Yoshimoto
  • Up
  • Country
  • Heart

• I find families intriguing, perhaps because I did not grow up in one. I was raised by a feminist, independent, single mother, a divorcee.

  

  Elif Safak
  • Up
  • Mother
  • Single