“Women came in only two types: whores or dutiful slaves to their families. Good girls would not go to a park alone. Good girls would be content with having men breathe the fresh air on their behalf, take in all the oxygen one required to keep women at bay.” WomenFeminismGenderGirlsMisogyny Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“In the meantime, a massive and frightening bleakness inside me kept expanding and rattling. Sometimes I wrote about it in my diary, sensing that if I didn’t somehow fill the hollowness, it would swallow my heart and spit out my core. Other times I wished for the emptiness to scrape me off, a permanent erasure. I was terrified that I was supposed to be living and I wasn’t, that I must have some prospect and I didn’t.” SadnessSorrowFutureDepressionEmptinessErasureProspect Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“Time passed. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there among the flowers, behind a huge stone on the hill, fantasizing about a serene nonexistence.” ExistenceSerenityNonexistence Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“Was engaging with world issues a defense mechanism to trivialize personal pain, or was I doing it to be aware and responsible?” NewsResponsibleAwareCurrent Affairs Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“The rage I’d kept bottled up inside of me boiled over, made me brave. I screamed at the guard who told me to fuck off. “International interventions will soon put a stop to your brutality!” BraveIranRage Quotes Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“I wondered what made one a Kurd and what made one half of that. Having only one Kurdish parent, or was it more about resisting ethnocide, going the extra mile to learn the language, to understand the history?” LanguageHistoryIdentityGenocideHeritageKurdEthnocide Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“Some of the customers would ask me, “Why are Kurds so hated in Turkey and Iraq?” As if I were responsible for dissecting idiocy and ignorance, as if cruelty and racism had a philosophical theory I was supposed to recite because I belonged to its victimized group. No one ever asked, “How does it feel to be a Kurd in a hateful world?” PhilosophyHateIgnoranceRacismIraqCrueltyKurdsTurkey Book:Daughters of Smoke and Fire Source: Daughters of Smoke and Fire