Sisters' Entrance Quotes

“I broke myself 500 times before the pieces started making sense.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“Death loves a woman, but we are still here.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“I want to live in a time where civil disobedience
doesn't end in death,
where children aren't born under the full moon of
revolution.

Where I haven't lost more people than there are
years in my life
I don't want this kind of wisdom.
I'm still too young for this kind of pain.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“We teach our girls to quarantine their emotions—
isolate heart and reason or risk perceptions of
hysteria.
We're taught that our anger is a misconception,
that our discontent will pass as long as we smile
pretty,
clean up nice, and play into this courtship dichotomy.
This twisted game of act and receive
where your role is assigned at birth.
Well, this is me telling you

that the only winning move is not to play.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“If you put a girl in a steel corset
you'll never have to hear her scream.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“When you build nations on someone's bones
what sense does it make to break them?”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“We do this everyday—make a good thing
out of nothing,
be the strong ones,
be okay even when we're not.

But today, we're more than okay,
we are women.
So, take my strength, I've got plenty.

Take my hands, I've got two.
Take my voice, let it guide you
and if it shakes, ask yourself:

when the earth shakes,
do you think that she's afraid?”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance

“Tonight he'll crush the henna blossoms
on her wrists with the same hands the man
next door threw at his wife last Thursday,
the same fists that taught a daughter
to keep her mouth shut.

He'll flatten the ridges of her spine
and she'll hold her tongue.
Bite the screams as they come.
Wipe the tears before the blood dries.
No one ever talks to the bride.”
― Emtithal Mahmoud, Sisters' Entrance