There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Just as there is no such thing as absolute death, nor is there absolute silence, for silence, too, converses in its own language and dialect.

Empires have a way of deceiving themselves into believing that, being superior to others, they will last forever. A shared expectation that tomorrow the sun will rise again, the earth will remain fertile, and the waters will never run dry. A comforting delusion that, though we will all die, the buildings we erect and the poems we compose and the civilizations we create will survive.