23
" The truth is, there are plenty of negative sentiments all around and within us - anger, fear, discontent, distrust, sadness, suspicion, constant self-doubt...but perhaps more than anything, an ongoing apprehension. And existential angst. All these emotions are very much a part of our lives now. Even digital spaces have become primarily emotional spaces. The posts that go viral or the videos that are watched most widely are freighted with emotions. What is equally significant is how this creates a tendency, a habit of mind, that perpetuates itself through space and time. "
― Elif Shafak , How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division
27
" Anxiety might be debilitating, melancholy too heavy a burden, but what is wrong with anger - especially with justified anger? It happens often - at literary festivals, public engagements or university events, someone in the audience, usually someone young, wants to convince me why you should all be enraged, and how rage is the progressive oil that keeps the wheels of fairness turning, a banner which we should wave proudly in the air against political gridlocks as well as economic, social and racial inequalities. I respect the sincerity of this cri de coeur and wholeheartedly recognize its validity. But I equally doubt whether anger by itself is a guiding force and a good friend in the long run. It is not. "
― Elif Shafak , How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division
30
" We have all the tools to build our societies anew, reform our ways of thinking, fix the inequalities and end the discriminations, and choose earnest wisdom over snippets of information, choose empathy over hatred, choose humanism over tribalism, yet we don't have much time or room for error while we are losing our planet, our only home, After the pandemic, we won't go back to the way things were before. And we shouldn't. 'What we call the beginning is often the end...The end is where we start from' (~T.S.Eliot, Little Gidding) "
― Elif Shafak , How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division
38
" Adamant though we may be to abandon our motherlands, because God knows we have had enough of them, enough of their stupidities and absurdities and hostilities and cruelties, the truth is they will never abandon us. They are shadows that tag along with us to the four corners of the earth, sometimes they walk ahead of us, sometimes they fall behind, but they are never too far. That is why, even long after our migrations and relocations, if you listen carefully, you can still detect traces of our motherlands in our broken accents, half-smiles, uncomfortable silences. "
― Elif Shafak , How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division