As I went through all these experiences, I began to compile a list that wasn't written down in any book, only inscribed in my soul. To me these were as universal, dependable, and invariable as the laws of nature. Together they constituted The Forty Rules of the Religion of Love, which could be attained through love and love only.

— Elif Shafak

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 Shafak

Before passing through the gates of a town I've never visited, I take a minute to salute its saints - the dead and the living, the known and the hidden. Never in my life have I arrived at a new place without getting the blessing of its saints first. It makes no difference to me whether that place belongs to Muslims, Christians, or Jews. I believe that the saints are beyond such trivial nominal distinctions. A saint belongs to all humanity.

— Elif Shafak

Believers are each other's mirrors.

— Elif Shafak

Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of Love, living is a burden - as you have seen.

— Elif Shafak

Creativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don’t let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, “honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.” Good to remember…

— Elif Shafak

Doubts are good. It means you are alive and searching. One does not become a believer overnight. He thinks he is a believer; then something happens in his life, and he becomes an unbeliever, after that, he becomes a believer again and then an unbeliever again, and so on. Until we reach a certain stage, we constantly waver. This is the only way forward. At each new step, we come closer to the Truth.

— Elif Shafak

Each time I say goodbye to a place I like, I feel like I am leaving a part of me behind. I guess whether we choose to travel as much as Marco Polo did or stay in the same spot from cradle to grave, life is a sequence of births and deaths. Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to light, old ones need to wither away.

— Elif Shafak

Earth: the things that are solid, absorbed and still. Water: the things that are fluid, changing and unpredictable. Wind: the things that shift, evolve and challenge. Fire: the things that damage, devastate and destroy. The void: the things that are present through their absence

— Elif Shafak

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

— Elif Shafak