Quotes from Randa Abdel-Fattah

I can imagine that there's a lot of hate right now. If it ends up turning people against each other then I'm petrified; I'm sickened to think that we will allow those murderers to end up winning.

another arabic curse that cracks me up is the one my parents use whenever they go aggro at me. Instead of cursing me, they curse themselves! When Dad yells out "God damn your father" I'm absolutely chicken pox itching to tell him that he really is missing the point.

Justice will come when those who hope outweigh those who despair. Hope is a force that cannot be reckoned with, ya Hayaat.

I'm sixty-seven years old. And, dear, in my sixty-seven years I've never let politics tell me how to treat people.

Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in people. And sometimes one act of kindness is all it takes to give you hope again.

Someone will employ us," I say. "I wouldn't fight so hard if I didn't believe that someone wasn't out there." I pause and then it hits me. "Me either." And I mean it.

empathy does more to your conscience than a news report

But... but... nobody knows where they'll end up. Nobody can play God with other people's destiny.

Belief means nothing without actions

Sometimes it's easy to lose faith in people. And sometimes one act of kindness is all it takes to give you hope again.

Life isn't like the movies. People don't change overnight. people don't go from arrogant and self-righteous to ashamed and remorseful. They don't suddenly give in when they've spent years taking out. No doesn't magically become a Yes.

What's the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don't change what's on the inside,were it really counts ?

I want to be with one person in my life. I want to know that the guy I spend the rest of my life with is the first person I share something so intimate and exciting with.

That's when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God's watching you, knowing that He knows you're trying to be strong to please Him.

Yeah, don't you take a break?' 'I don't have time for breaks.' 'That's the whole point of a break. When you've got no time, you need a break.

Parents. Honestly. Sometimes they really do think the world revolves around them.

Everything is relative. If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don't look at its manifestation.

But persistent name calling? that prolongs hurt. It stretches out. Each nasty word stretches the rubber band further away until finally, one day, it snaps back at you with maximum impact

And it's when I'm standing there this morning, in my PJs and a hijab, next to my mum and my dad, kneeling before God, that I feel a strange sense of calm. I feel like nothing can hurt me, and nothing else matters.

there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood.

We have to choices in this world; we either try to survive or to give up.

It's like one of those scenes from a feel-good Hollywood movie. Where everybody is happy and nobody's hair fizzes in the wind. Where it doesn't rain, your shoes stay comfortable all day, and everybody's jokes are funny.

Too many people look at it as though it (the hijab) has bizarre powers sewn into its microfibers. Powers that transform Muslim girls into UCOs (Unidentified Covered Objects), which turn Muslim girls from an 'us' to a 'them.

True friends are those who love you not in spite of your faults and imperfections, but because of them.