Home > Author > Manal Al-Sharif
1 " The rain begins with a single drop "
― Manal Al-Sharif , Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening
2 " Freedom is to live with dignity "
3 " This is what happens when the state intervenes in a person’s private life; it creates two separate personas. It compels you either to lead two separate lives, or to violate what’s imposed on youwhen the state isn’t looking. "
4 " I was lonely, desperate, and angry. At that moment, I truly understood what it meant to be a Saudi woman. It meant being confronted with every possible kind ofobstacle and discrimination. It meant being told that if you want to race with men, you’d have to do it with your hands and legs cut off. I started to wish I had been born somewhere—anywhere—else. "
5 " How odd it is that we judge a woman by her clothes and the place she eats lunch and the subjects she talks about with her colleagueson her coffee break, yet we don’t judge a man if he doesn’t grow his beard or if he works with women or speaks to them. Why do Saudi women allow subjugation to a man and adhere to men’s rules and conditions? Why did I? "
6 " So you’re the infamous Manal al-Sharif,” he said, eyeing me from behind his desk. “Aren’t you ashamed of what you did?”“Is driving a car something shameful?” I answered back. "
7 " I got a text from my husband. “Manal, you are divorced,” it read. “Your papers are in the court of Khobar.” I was divorced in my absence, just as I had been married. "
8 " My scars teach me that I am stronger than what caused them. "
9 " Gradually, I realized that the ideas I had embraced and defended blindly all my life represented a singular, and highly radical, point of view. I began to question everything. "
10 " Because my mother couldn't change my present, I decided to change my daughter's future "
― Manal Al-Sharif
11 " It is an amazing contradiction: a society that frowns on a woman going out without a man; that forces you to use separate entrances for universities, banks, restaurants, and mosques; that divides restaurants with partitions so that unrelated males and females cannot sit together; that same society expects you to get into a car with a man who is not your relative, with a man who is a complete stranger, by yourself and have him take you somewhere inside a locked car, alone. "
12 " She took my papers, the papers that had followed me from the Khobar police station to jail, and pointed at a place where I was supposed to sign. On the paper there was a line for charges. In the blank space, someone had written “driving while female. "
13 " How beautiful it is to live in a world with no walls. "
14 " We were like captive animals that had lost the will to fight. We even went so far as to defend the very constraints that they hadimposed upon us. "
15 " Don’t be afraid. Fear won’t prevent death, it prevents life.” —NAGUIB MAHFOUZ "
16 " The axiomatic thing about Saudi society is that while there are a seemingly infinite number of rules, it is also possible for people in authority to go outside those rules, and, if not break them, at least bend them quite a bit. "
17 " while there are some scars that we might wish to hide because the spiritual or mental pain they represent is far greater than the physical pain caused to us at the time of injury, there are also some scars that we want to see whenever we look in the mirror. Because these scars serve as a valuable reminder of our past. My scars teach me that I am stronger than what caused them "
18 " Extremism frequently turns its champions into angry people, driven by conflicting desires. At first, I pitied my less enlightened parents and siblings. Then I felt superior to them, poor sinners that they were. Then I lost patience with their unwillingnessto see the one true path and resorted to threats, intimidation, and yelling. At night, I was tormented by thoughts of what would happen to all us of when we reached our graves. "
19 " I had to smuggle an early Nokia camera cell phone into the country from Bahrain in 2004. There was a large black market for these banned phones, with smugglers hiding them inside car bumpers or car door frames, while customs officials and police used ultrasound devices to ferret them out.) "
20 " I knew that I wouldn’t be able to apply for the ID card without his signature, but I went to the registry office anyway and sat there waiting, holding back my tears. I took an application form and the guardian consent form and returned to the car chastened. Abouya looked at me and said sarcastically, “Where’s the card?” It was a clear statement that he was still the master of my fate. "
