The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi Quotes

“For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“After all, we build our homes upon the ruins of lost cities and sail our ships over the drowned palaces of forgotten kings.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“It is not always easy to do the right thing. More often than not, it is a lonely, thankless ordeal. That does not mean it is not worth doing.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“For while the pious claim money doesn’t buy happiness, I can attest from personal experience that poverty buys nothing.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“I’m not sure I ever stopped being a nakhudha,” I finally replied. “Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs, but that does not mean that which makes us us is gone. And I hope . . . part of me hopes anyway that in seeing me do this, Marjana knows more is possible. I would not want her to believe that because she was born a girl, she cannot dream.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“There is no living thing that doesn’t desire freedom.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“I wanted to travel the world and sail every sea. I wanted to have adventures, to be a hero, to have my tales told in courtyards and street fairs, where perhaps kids who’d grown up like me, with more imagination than means, might be inspired to dream. Where women who were told there was only one sort of respectful life for them could listen to tales of another who’d broken away—and thrived when she’d done so.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“To be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“The gang all back together . . . we should rob something!”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Ah yes, a certain degree of rebelliousness is expected from youth. It is why we have stories of treasure-seeking princesses and warrior women that end with the occasional happiness. But they are expected to end—with the boy, the prince, the sailor, the adventurer. The man that will take her maidenhood, grant her children, make her a wife. The man who defines her. He may continue his epic—he may indeed take new wives and make new children!—but women’s stories are expected to dissolve into a fog of domesticity . . . if they’re told at all.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Both my grandfather and father had impressed upon me from an early age that we shared the sea with countless other peoples; if God had not meant for such diversity, he would have made us all alike.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I have traveled widely enough that I take everything written about “foreigners” with doubt and know better than to judge a community by their worst individuals.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“Are not all mothers capable of being monsters when it comes to their children?”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“The truth scarcely matters when it comes to a good tale.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“A woman can lower her gaze only so often without tripping over her feet.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“People have this idea of mothers, that we are soft and gentle and sweet. As though the moment my daughter was laid on my breast, the phrase I would do anything did not take on a depth I could have never understood before.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“I have not survived this long by confusing courage with foolishness. People may call my kind sea rats, but let me tell you ,rats know when to fucking run.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“he said he hoped you had deep pockets.” “How fortunate that I do.” And whether that meant it held coins, my fist, or a knife, I’d yet to decide.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Where was the line between God’s plan and something being too good to be true?”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

“My father’s retellings could be dramatic and my mother would often chide him, especially before bedtime when she feared he’d give me nightmares. But his stories never frightened me. I was an overly brash child who delighted in believing every stray cat a djinn, every shadow beneath the waves a mermaid. But it went beyond imaginings. I’d grown up feeling terribly unusual, out of place and never at peace with the fate afforded young girls. In a hidden corner of my heart, I nursed embarrassing dreams. That I was not the child of my parents, but the daughter of a tribe of female warriors who flew upon winged horses. Or I was heir to a hidden sea kingdom below the waves, and the whispered sighs I heard from the water when we sailed and the strange lightning in the distance were not natural weather phenomena but magic, my true family calling to me.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“And by “less than pleased,” she called me a fucking idiot and went into a great harangue about the management of risk that convinced me she regularly murdered curious neighbors.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Perhaps another storyteller long ago decided this was best, just as I briefly held back the truth from you. Or maybe it was an honest mistranslation. We will likely never know.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“He who dares does while he who fears fails,”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“I have traveled widely enough that I take everything written about “foreigners” with doubt and know better than to judge a community by their worst individuals.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Now, listen . . . I’m not an easy woman to shock. I’m a sinner very much relying on the “Most Merciful” aspect of my Lord.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“Fine.” I gave in. “Come die with us.”
― S.A. Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

“People have this idea of mothers, that we are soft and gentle and sweet. As though the moment my daughter was laid on my breast, the phrase I would do anything did not take on a depth I could have never understood before.”
― Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi