There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

For the king knows that in order to dominate other cultures, you must capture not only their lands, crops and assets but also their collective imagination, their shared memories.

That is what growing up means, in some simple way: learning to repress all expressions of pure happiness and joy.

“That is what happens when you love someone—you carry their face behind your

eyelids, and their whispers in your ears, so that even in deep sleep, years later, you can still see and hear them in your dreams.”

“Well, this world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others, I’m afraid, abuse and brutality. But the best students are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave.”

“Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt.”