Book

The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi

In this lyrical, exuberant follow-up to her novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his

(47 total)

Characters

Elif Shafak (47)

“No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, magic in love, Loving, Love (The Concept)

“Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Unexplainable, Things

“If we are the same person before and after we love, that means we haven’t loved enough.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Change, Love, Different person, influence

“If we are the same person before and after we love, that means we haven’t loved enough.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Loving, Change, Love

“Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: love quotes, mystery of love

“Love can only be perfected in pain.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Pain, Sacrifice

“For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

“What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Patience, Hope

“It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Hard Times, Acceptane, Love

“But treasures are hidden among ruins. A broken heart hides treasures.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Heartbreak, Treasure, Blessings In Disguise

“I'd rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other than love.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, God, Unconditional Love

“Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, True Love, Paradoxes

“If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Softness, kindness, Love, Faith

“You can purify your body through fasting and abstinence, but only love will purify your heart.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Purity, Cleansing

“Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Karma, kindness, Evil

“The way to a man’s heart can sometimes take a woman far away from herself, my dear.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Love Is Blind

“To stay alive, you need to fight. It's as simple as that.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Fight, Survival, Life

“What good could come out of a man who cannot settle down? If a man has no sense of belonging, he can drift in every direction, like a dry leaf in the wind.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: lost, Getting Lost, Belonging

“The idea that we could control the course of our lives through rational choices was as absurd as a fish trying to control the ocean in which it swam.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Control, Life, Destiny, Choices

“To him, people who had not made their heart their primary guide to life, who could not open to love and follow its path the way a sunflower follows the sun, were not really alive.”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com

Tagged: Following Your Heart, heart, Passion