Ruth Ahmed Quotes

The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.

Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up and doing that every day? ~ Ruth Ahmed

Honour, in her modern self-confidence, had grown up never having to face actual raw, passionate, drop-down-dead-hostility. She didn't really understand what was going to happen, ~ Ruth Ahmed

I steadied by guitar against the table, and steadied myself with it.

And forgot every rule I had ever known. ~ Ruth Ahmed

I wanted my eternity in carbon molecules, in being part of the trees, the sky, air itself ~ Ruth Ahmed

I couldn't help but think of Al's pre-ordained betrothal to Billo and of how hard the match-makers had worked to find the girl beautiful enough to match this extraordinary man - this extraordinary man of mine. ~ Ruth Ahmed

When I was a child I burnt the back of my right hand on a hot iron.

I can't recall the pain, but there's an eye-shaped scar as testament to it. As a teenager I used to think it was the all seeing eye of the anti-Christ and that I was the devil incarnate. Or at least a minion.

It was my right hand, innit?

What I do remember though is my father, or Dad as we called him, abandoning the polite Abbu, telling me not to cry and to be patient because the fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fire of the iron. ~ Ruth Ahmed

He looked straight at me and winked. On anyone else it would have looked ridiculous - 1996 had moved beyond the language of winking at girls. ~ Ruth Ahmed

The fire within her, and her soul, were eclipsing my own. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Do you have a girlfriend?'
'No,' I said quickly.

Deny Honour again. Peter only denied Jesus three times. I must have denied Honour like three thousand times. ~ Ruth Ahmed

You feel well, Ali? You have a very faraway look on your face, beta,' my dad said. 'Like you have left your heart behind.'

He fixed me with eyes as liquid black as mine and for a moment I felt exposed, like he could see right through me. That irrational childhood thought that he could read my mind maybe.

'What nonsense, his heart is here with his mother and his family. Tell him, Ali,' my mother said.

'Begum, this generation of boys and girls, you know how they are.' My dad never said my mother's name; she was always Begum, the generic term for 'wife'. ~ Ruth Ahmed

The drugs took over and she fell asleep then.
Only her face was visible, the medical equipment acting as some hideous hijab for her. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Look, my son, she is so beautiful, she has fair skin and green eyes and brown hair.'

'She's English?' I asked cheekily, holding the cheap photo print with trepidation.

Which unfortunate victim had they found for me to marry in what backwater, unbeknownst that my heart was not for trading? Honour would quote Shakespeare to make a point; for me, it was always Rumi.

'La hawla wala kuwwat... May God protect us from such misfortune... you think I have lost my senses that I would marry you to a white girl?' My mum used the word gori as an insult and yet when she talked about Billo she said 'Look how gori she is.'

Oh, Mum, the irony.

'Well, you seem pretty obsessed with green eyes and skin colour,' I mumbled.

'She is gorgeous.' Mum went on ignoring me. 'Think how beautiful your children, my grandchildren, will be? They will have cats' eyes, just like Billo.'

Honour has fair skin and green eyes too, and just think how beautiful your grandchildren will be if they're mixed race, I thought.

I didn't say that to my mum, obviously. ~ Ruth Ahmed

My heart was in my mouth. I realised that I had no desire to know any more about her past. What was behind her made me feel sick, petrified. Only the future mattered now. ~ Ruth Ahmed

As the days dwindled towards the end of the week I knew only one thing: I couldn't return to our old life.

Haroon had taken Honour and Al with him, ~ Ruth Ahmed

It was things like that I remembered about Ruby, the incongruity, the struggle to find herself.

No matter what she wore though she was always Ruby, always herself. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Do you ever look up at the stars and try to contemplate the ends of the universe? ~ Ruth Ahmed

Honour and I would have to create our world, live by our own rules. My family wasn't ready for her just yet.

I didn't know if they ever would be. ~ Ruth Ahmed

They say some couples are joined in heaven, and on Earth they look for their partner soul to be with.

I knew I had found mine in her. And who can fight heaven? ~ Ruth Ahmed

People don't really change, they just adapt to circumstances. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Ruby clapped her hands in glee and gave a comedic wiggle of her head, Bollywood style.

I know the song now, can even sing it, but back then all I heard was the verdant Punjabi, the striking primary colours of the five rivers, the intricate history of a complex land. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely capable of controlling her life and what happened to it. ~ Ruth Ahmed

I would find tiny flowers left by somebody else, and I would know Honour had been to London. I only felt a bit sad she hadn't let me know and met up with me.

She didn't mention anything when I went to Kent at the weekends either.

It was what it was. ~ Ruth Ahmed

9/11 forced us to build another identity, to look deep and say who are we and what do we believe and is killing in the name of Islam part of that religion?

No. No. No. ~ Ruth Ahmed

Don't try to tell Namath's people on First Avenue about Babe Ruth, because they don't even know the name. In fact, with the young, you can forget all of baseball. The sport is gone. But if you ever have seen Ruth, and then you see Namath, you know there is very little difference. ~ Jimmy Breslin

There are some novelists who can get away with writing about sex - Philip Roth, Ian McEwan - but they are rare. ~ Ruth Rendell

I would like to think of my 'ignorance' less as a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, an example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizes the end of the millennium. If we can't act on knowledge, then we can't survive without ignorance. ~ Ruth Ozeki

One of the biggest problems women have is they work really hard and put their heads down and assume hard work gets noticed. And hard work for the wrong boss does not get noticed. Hard work for the wrong boss results in one thing - that boss looks terrific, and you get stuck. ~ Ruth Porat

Sculpture is like farming. If you just keep at it, you can get quite a lot done. ~ Ruth Asawa

The landscape which, a few weeks earlier, had been blotted out by dust was now hazy with moisture. ~ Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The first time you make something, follow the recipe, then figure out how to tailor it to your own tastes. ~ Ruth Reichl

He's stopped reading The Great Minds of Western Philosophy completely, and spend all his time programming, which really is his superpower. I mean, there are lots of superheroes with different superpowers, and some of them are big and flashy, like superstrength, and superspeed, and molecular restructuring, and force fields. But these abilities are really not so different from the superpower stuff that old Jiko could do, like moving superslow, or reading people's minds, or appearing in doorways, or making people feel okay about themselves just by being there. ~ Ruth Ozeki

Don't face the facts. ~ Ruth Gordon

You have been my saviour in my loneliness.
Were it not for you, I would have been dead. ~ Umera Ahmed- Peer-e-Kamil

The most difficult dilemma for a person is perhaps when his heart testifies to an inevitable reality yet his tongue will not proclaim it, when his mind screams in acceptance of truth but he cant bring himself to state it. ~ Umera Ahmed

Even though I was making documentaries, my films had fictional elements to them. I think I like blurring those distinctions because so much of what we see on television purports to be the truth, but it's often largely imaginary - or wishful thinking, or any number of less honorable things. ~ Ruth Ozeki

I've never met a murderer as far as I know. I would hate to. ~ Ruth Rendell

As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy. ~ Babe Ruth

Take all away. I am content to know Such love is mine-for life is all too brief To grieve for pleasures bringing only grief; Give me but You; it is enough just so. ~ Ruth Graham

A good exercise session leaves an athlete person gasping for air, sweating, and exhausted, and so is writing and drawing for writers and artists, but the brain is what pants and feels exhaustion.
Writing and drawing are a great mental effort that equals tiring physical training.
When you write and draw, you need to use all your brain muscles to transfer your ideas into the paper. Concentration, knowledge, experience, creativity, imagination, all unite, trying hard to finish a text or an art piece. ~ Noora Ahmed Alsuwaidi

An unfinished book. left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will and ruthless determination to tame it again. ~ Ruth Ozeki

If you can't make the image bigger or more important than what you see, then don't push the button ~ Ruth Bernhard

Zazen is better than a home. Zazen is a home that you can't ever lose. ~ Ruth Ozeki

When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive. ~ Ruth Simmons

The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences. ~ Ruth Benedict

We're all selfish. It's an age thing. We go spotty, disobedient and daft. But most of all, we go selfish ~ Ruth Hamilton

There's always been a religious strain in me. I can't get rid of it. I don't want to get rid of it. I'm not involved in a church, but I understand that impulse to believe in something that's never going to betray you. ~ Ruth Wilson

Never' is an unquantifiable and unrealistic amount of time. ~ Ruth Cardello

But when I told her they didn't cost one penny and were very nutritious (I made that part up, but I'm sure it must be true), she ate them up. She packed them into her lunch pail this morning, and when I looked ~ Ruth Reichl

One never knows when inspiration will strike. Inspiration happens in a flash so pay attention. And then Go with it. Immediately. ~ Ruth Yunker

When you do things in a soft way, you make the other people believe they've thought up something to do for you, when actually you're directing them. Later, Ruth ~ Lisa See

The pains of all our labor to raise our child, continues to follow in cessation from one moment to the next. ~ Roberta Ruth Hill

I lay there unable to move, reading about disasters in the far corners of the world. What could I do? Write letters, send checks. But there will never be a time when terrible trouble is not stalking the earth, and I began to see how important it is to appreciate what you have.

For too long I'd been waiting for the wonderful. But there is so much joy in everyday occurrences: a butterfly in the sun the first crisp bite of an apple, the rich aroma of roasting meat. Maybe I had to break my foot to open my eyes, but I finally understood why cooking means so much to me. In a world filled with no, it is my yes. ~ Ruth Reichl

I usually shop at Charlotte Ruth and Bebe. ~ Christy Romano

Virtue begins when we dedicate ourselves actively to the job of gratitude. ~ Ruth Benedict

When she had him along, the world looked different, and she liked the way she saw things she'd never seen before ... But she noticed other things, too
the way she herself felt acutely visible with the baby in her arms, and the way some people's faces lit up when they saw a child. His warm weight was like living ballast, thrumming with energy, giving her substance. Folks were drawn to that. ~ Ruth Ozeki

Indeed, love is beautiful, yet at the same time, it is a cruel punishment, starker than death. ~ Khaddam Ahmed Khan

You're right, Ruth. You did screw up my career. You screwed it up good. Best thing you ever did, matter of fact. But you know something? It's okay. Because if it was between the church and you, there was no contest. Even with al the ups and downs and the craziness and the shit and the maxed-out credit cards, the church never stood a chance. I chose you, Ruth. And I'm glad. There. That's what my so-called career was about. And that's what I should have said to you. And I'm sorry I didn't. I'm sorry, Ruth. I'm sorry. ~ K. D. Miller

I think within a year or so, perhaps, if 9/11 had not happened, in Afghanistan would have been a very broad-based general uprising against the Taliban. ~ Ahmed Rashid