"One of the things I tell young people - and older people too - is that when things don't happen that you want, don't drown in discouragement. We say, "Oh, this didn't happen, so nothing good will happen." Don't barricade yourself."

“When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners?”

Source : "The Rumpus Interview With Elif Batuman". Interview with Sean Carman, therumpus.net. April 25, 2012.

“Forgiveness allows us to live in the sunlight of the present, not the darkness of the past. Forgiveness alone, of all our human actions, opens up the world to the miracle of infinite possibility.”

“...one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.”

“Death is nothing to fear. It is only another dimension.”

“My mother is a Muslim - she walks five steps behind my father. She doesn't have to. He just looks better from behind.”

“It also will come through natural forces, as a lot of intense storms also will be brewing. There's a lot for us to get caught up into if we choose, but they are warning us not to get caught up in it. It's simply a mirror of the times that we don't necessarily have to respond to and react to from within.”

“God's heart…is not that we escape our lot, but that we learn to thrive in the midst of it.”

“We've - we heard a lot from state secretaries of state and other elections officials from all states in the nation, both Democrat and Republican. Before Election Day, we heard for weeks concern about the election being rigged or the election being hacked.”

Source : Source: www.npr.org