The Forty Rules of Love

by Elif Shafak

I am a happy, satisfied man both in my private life and in the community. Why, then, do I feel this void inside me, growing deeper and wider with each passing day?

Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

How could I, a minor element in God’s vast circle of creation, belittle another element in the circle, be it an animal or a human being?

Personally, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with sadness. Just the opposite—hypocrisy made people happy, and truth made them sad.

If you want to change the way others treat you, you should first change the way you treat yourself.

Befuddled believer! If every Ramadan one fasts in the name of God and every Eid one sacrifices a sheep or a goat as an atonement for his sins, if all his life one strives to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and five times a day kneels on a prayer rug but at the same time has no room for love in his heart, what is the use of all this trouble? Faith is only a word if there is no love at its center,

The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion.

Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.