Evil Eye Quotes

“Why didn't the world recognize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth? How much more empathy would people have if they understood that their position in life was decided not by goodness or merit or fault or need but by luck and chance, a toss of a coin?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Perhaps she had never confronted the voice in her head because it had been easier to listen to it. It had been safer to sustain the belief that she was a bad person. At least then she was in control. At least then she could arrange her life so carefully that her badness didn’t spill out and leak everywhere. But she would no longer be able to live her life with this regret, paralyzed by all the words she hadn’t said.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“There’s nothing to fix. You aren’t broken. You’re hurting.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“What’s the point of working for the future if it means forgetting to live?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Language was often a bridge, but sometimes a barrier. No matter how she chose her words, they would always come out a little distorted. So she said nothing for a while. Silence was better than being misunderstood, erased, unseen for who you really were.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“To surrender to the vulnerability of love and allow ourselves to be loved by others—isn’t that the most courageous act of all?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“And yet she was no longer a child who could be sustained by the possibility of a better life. This was it. This was her life. Her chance to do better. And she was failing.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“In the real world, recovery from mental illness could be a lifelong struggle, like pushing through a revolving door. Progress would be made and lost, setbacks were inevitable, and there was no finish line or picture-perfect ending.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Our emotions are energy,” Yara continued. “Energy in motion. The point is to move the emotions through and out of your body. When you don’t express your emotions, when you keep your feelings inside, the energy gets trapped.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“It was like her body was an ocean, and these feelings would always come and go like the tides. The task was not to let herself be pulled away by one of the currents. The task was to accept that her insides would feel violent and tumultuous at times, and to be okay with that.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“It would mean maybe I’m not so terrible after all, and maybe there isn’t something wrong with me, and I don’t deserve bad things to happen to me. It would mean that I was justified in feeling sad and alone growing up, that I deserved to be loved and cared for, that I’m not a cold, unlovable person.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Silence was better than being misunderstood, erased, unseen for who you really were.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“I feel unsafe in my own body, like it’s trapped me somehow,”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“The only person you can trust is yourself, and sometimes even that’s not easy.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Who cares what the world sees if you can’t even stand to look at yourself?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Most of the time I just feel like I suck at being a person, that being alive is really difficult.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Nobody had warned her of this as a girl, that the years would pass and she would still resort to this, that she would live in a body that was always on guard.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Her soul had always been cracked in the center, her body split in two, her feet stretched so wide between opposite sides of the globe that she couldn’t stand straight. She was American but un-American; Arab, but not entirely.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“What if this was actually her curse? Not losing her job or failing at marriage, but simply being unlovable, unwanted, no matter what she did.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Her family had always been told to classify themselves as white because of their Middle Eastern origins. But Yara had never considered herself white or been viewed as white by anyone else, and marking herself as such felt inaccurate, as though she were being simmered down, reduced until she were invisible.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“(...) she shrugged to articulate her feelings, even to herself. Words diluted things, made them smaller.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Who cares what the world sees when you can't even stand to look at yourself?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Who cares what the world thinks when you can't even stand to look at yourself?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“He cared about her. Someone cared about her, someone who didn’t have any obligation to do so. Hadn’t she wanted to hear those words her entire life? To love and be loved in return?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Ha!” Baba said. “You think you’re going to feel better if you leave? You think you’re going to live happily ever after? That’s the bullshit this country tries to feed you. Why do you think half of them are divorced?” She opened her mouth to respond, but Baba cut her off. “You’re a mother. Your children come first. What about your daughters?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Fadi has been slacking off at work and jeopardizing our business, staying late to hang out, charging the business card for personal trips, even claiming reimbursement for a storage room that doesn’t exist.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“I don’t understand,” she said, staring at him. “You’ve been building your business for years. Why would you just give it all up?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“You think I don’t feel overwhelmed? I’m the one who gets the bills every month! I’m the one who pays for everything! Tell me, who’s going to do that if I stay home with you and clean up the kitchen all day?”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“She told Esther how Baba had called her one day with news of Mama’s sudden death, and how he’d continued on with his life as if nothing had happened, as if Mama had been little more than an appliance that had stopped running on him.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye

“Maybe that kind of love was enough for me back then. I probably deluded myself into believing our marriage wasn’t some sort of transaction, so I felt like I had some control over my own life. But now I want something better. I deserve better.”
― Etaf Rum, Evil Eye