The Forty Rules of Love

by Elif Shafak

genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self.

Beautiful Quote

The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within.

True

On the Sufi path, first you discover the art of being alone amid the crowd. Next you discover the crowd within your solitude—the voices inside you.

I love that

This was the most impulsive decision she had made in her life, and yet at the same time it felt as if the decision had already been made for her. All she needed to do was to accept it.

Is this how time works?

“I wish we had met earlier,” Ella heard herself say. “There is no such thing as early or late in life,” Aziz said. “Everything happens at the right time.”

Beautiful

Cringing at his question, Ella said, “Why are we being so pessimistic? You can fight this illness. You can do it for me. For us.” “Why do we have to fight everything?” Aziz wanted to know. “We’re always talking about fighting inflation, fighting AIDS, fighting cancer, fighting corruption, fighting terrorism, even fighting extra pounds. … Don’t we have any other way of dealing with things?”

So f. true about fighting

But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge.

True