Isha Barlas > Isha's Quotes

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
― Khaled Hosseini

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that”
― Rupi Kaur

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”
― Khaled Hosseini

“Things usually work out in the end."
"What if they don't?"
"That just means you haven't come to the end yet.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“I didn't leave because
I stopped loving you,
I left because the longer
I stayed the less I loved myself.”
― Rupi Kaur

“do not look for healing
at the feet of those
who broke you”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.”
― Jeannette Walls

“Every time you
tell your daughter
you yell at her
out of love
you teach her to confuse
anger with kindness
which seems like a good idea
till she grows up to
trust men who hurt her
cause they look so much
like you.”
― Rupi Kaur

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Tell me, just how many lives need to be lost until someone realises the impact that their words can have on another individual?”
― Isha Barlas, Unspoken Words

“The social pressure to be happy therefore means that many people who aren’t happy or experience extreme low mood such as depression, are pressurised into not speaking about their negative emotions. It makes it hard for individuals to be honest with both themselves and others, and means that we would rather keep it all inside. Being expected to be happy all the time makes us feel like we’re failing when we’re feeling unhappy.”
― Isha Barlas, Unspoken Words

“We should not feel ashamed, disregarded or belittled for suffering from mental health conditions.

We should speak out, we should let our voices be heard. No one should have to suffer alone in silence.”
― Isha Barlas, Unspoken Words

“We should speak out about what we've been through and the dark thoughts that consume our minds,
and the way we question the worth of our every breath.
We should never ever cease to stop.
Not until going to the therapist is considered as normal as going to a doctor when we feel ill,
and we shall not be silenced -
Not until we no longer have to witness countless suicides in order to spark a serious conversation about mental health in our societies.”
― Isha Barlas, Unspoken Words

“...you shall hear about how we managed to survived.
How we survived the hardest battle of all - the battle with ones own mind, thoughts and feelings.
The inner battle with oneself.
The scars from our journey remind us that we made it through what we never thought we would -
And with every day that passes by, we win another battle of survival.”
― Isha Barlas

“Some people suffer in silence, pain in the hearts but smiles on their faces.”
― Isha Barlas