Etaf Rum Quotes

But don't you think stories should be used to tell the truth?"
"No, I think we need stories to protect us from the truth.

It's the loneliest people who love books the most...it was the opposite of loneliness, too, like there were too many people around me, forced connections, that I needed a little isolation to think on my own, to be my own person.

What's meant for you will reach you even if it's beneath two mountains, and what's not meant for you won't reach you even if it's between your two lips

She thinks about the stories stacked across the shelves, leaning against one another like burdened bodies, supporting the works within each other. There must be hundreds of them, thousands even. Maybe her story is in here somewhere. Maybe she will finally find it.

Soon you'll learn that there's no room for love in a woman's life. There's only one thing you'll need, and that's patience.

Perhaps that was why she had spent her childhood with a book in front of her face, trying to make sense of her life through stories. Books were her only reliable source of comfort, her only hope.

Books were my armor. Everything I'd ever learned growing up, all my thoughts, dreams, goals, experiences, it all came from the books I read. It was like I went around collecting knowledge, plucking it from pages and storing it up, waiting for a chance to use it.

She hadn't realized it meant marrying a man she barely knew, nor that marriage was the beginning and end of her life's purpose. It was only as she grew older that Deya had truly realized her place in her community. She had learned that there was a certain way she had to live, certain rules she had to follow, and that, as a woman, she would never have a legitimate claim over her own life.

Her powerlessness even comforted her somehow. Knowing that she couldn't change things - that she didn't have a choice - made living it more bearable.

She knew she had to teach them how to love themselves, that this was the only way they had a chance at happiness. Only she didn't see how she could when the world pressed shame into women like pillows into their faces. She wanted to save her daughters from her fate, but she couldn't seem to find a way out.

Sometimes I wish I could've been born a man, just to see how it feels. It would've spared me a lot of grief in life.

That was the real reason abuse was so common, Isra thought for the first time. Not only because there was no government protection, but because women were raised to believe they were worthless, shameful creatures who deserved to get beaten, who were made to depend on the men who beat them.

Aren't you scared?
Of course I am...But whatever happens...It can't be worse than what's happening now...but awareness and action, she also knew, were very different things.