Women Dreaming Quotes

“She knew that her father’s entire objective was to keep his daughter under his control. She clearly understood that to achieve his ends he would do anything and that he was waiting for the first instance at which she would do something wrong. Right now, all that he needed was just one mistake, one slip-up. That was enough, that would allow him to stop her studies and bring her home, under his control. I said so already that this would happen. Now you see, it has happened. Just as I said. Something had to happen so that he could later claim that he had predicted it all along. What foolishness! What stubbornness! He wanted it to happen so badly, for his one fear to come true, to come to pass.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“These days, when Saji thought about her mother’s decisions – including her decision to remarry – she found it surprising more than angering. Although it was true that to get married was idiotic, Saji wondered how her mother had such a capacity for resistance even though she lacked any education. She was even more in awe of Parveen. How could she summon the courage to tell Hasan that she did not want to marry again? His word was law in the household – and she knew for sure that to disobey him was indeed a very big thing.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“Even the wounds created by these words had scarred over now, become numb. But would the body and its needs follow in that direction – why did they not?”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“Will women not have some wishes, beliefs, and thoughts of their own – or should their minds and hearts not exist at all?”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“He would do exactly as he pleased, imposing his beliefs on others. And in order to do that, he would claim this was the sharia, that this was what the Quran said, that this was law. He was not the type of man who admitted to his mistakes. He would justify it all with religion.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“The face of the mother she had known until then, and the face she was seeing now – there were great changes and chasms of time between those faces.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“In those tears, in that embrace, she could sense a peace that had been absent until then. The incomparable peace that comes when one slowly counts and retrieves all that was lost. A peace that could not be described.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“She felt that so much of his self-control was an exercise in cruelty.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“What is happiness for you, Nanni?’ Parveen had asked her once, hesitating. But Amina had replied directly, without skipping a beat: ‘Good food, and listening to songs on the radio.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“He had to remind himself that he was a man – and that fact alone was enough to prevent him from feeling any guilt.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming

“The price she paid for her first marriage was the life she lost through her second.”
― Salma, Women Dreaming