The Architect's Apprentice

by Elif Shafak

‘Working is prayer for the likes of us,’ his master often said. ‘It’s the way we commune with God.’ ‘Then how does He respond to us?’ Jahan had once asked, way back when he was younger. ‘By giving us more work, of course.’

‘Sometimes, for the soul to thrive, the heart needs to be broken, son.’

‘In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together.’

‘When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.’

Those who surround themselves with grovellers who praise everything they do will not forgive the honest man who tells the truth.’

‘If you wish to excel at your craft, you have to convince the universe why it should be you rather than someone else.’

‘Resentment is a cage, talent is a captured bird. Break the cage, let the bird take off and soar high. Architecture is a mirror that reflects the harmony and balance present in the universe. If you do not foster these qualities in your heart, you cannot build.’

If you don’t know what to do with an answer, don’t ask the question,’

‘I didn’t say are you a student. I asked, are you a learner? Not every pupil is a learner.’

‘Our Sultan, may the mercy of God be upon him, should levy a tax on idiocy. If he could collect a coin for every stupid word uttered, his treasury would be full.’

He who has a library has a thousand teachers.

‘When you master a language, you are given the key to a castle. What you’ll find inside depends on you.’

Lost among books, he found himself.

We’re mortals. Decisions are sheep; habits, the shepherd.’

‘Greed puts gratitude to sleep.’

‘Does what we do in life matter so much? Or is it what we don’t do that carries weight?’

When you are drowning, you grab on to a snake. You don’t say, Are you a good snake or a bad one, let me take a look at you first.’

‘God has built the palace of our body and entrusted to us its key,’

It was after this incident that Jahan understood his master’s secret resided not in his toughness, for he was not tough, nor in his indestructibility, for he was not indestructible, but in his ability to adapt to change and calamity, and to rebuild himself, again and again, out of the ruins. While Jahan was made of wood, and Davud of metal, and Nikola of stone, and Yusuf of glass, Sinan was made of flowing water. When anything blocked his course, he would flow under, around, above it, however he could; he found his way through the cracks, and kept flowing forward.

this world, too, was a spectacle. One way or another, everyone was parading. They performed their tricks, each of them, some staying longer, others shorter, but in the end they all left through the back door, similarly unfulfilled, similarly in need of applause.

If not put to use, iron rusts, woodwork crumbles, man errs, Sinan said. Work we must.

Nothing ruins the human soul more than hidden resentment.

Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one’s faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.

Centre of the universe was neither in the East nor in the West. It was where one surrendered to love.