“I spent my entire childhood observing people. I still do.” — Elif Safak Quote

“I spent my entire childhood observing people. I still do.”

“İnsanoğlu nedense anlayamadığı şeylere kötülemeye meyilli.”

“Part of me always felt like the other, the outsider, the observer. My father had two sons with his second wife, who I didn't meet until my late 20s. I was always on the periphery. In Madrid, I was the only Turk in a very international school, so I had to start thinking about identity. All these things affected me.”

“I find families intriguing, perhaps because I did not grow up in one. I was raised by a feminist, independent, single mother, a divorcee.”

“Books change us. Books save us. I know this because it happened to me. Books saved me. So, I do believe through stories we can learn to change, we can learn to empathize and be more connected with the universe and with humanity.”

“The only way to learn writing is by writing. Talent, as charming as it sounds, amounts to no more than 12 per cent of the process. Work is 80 per cent. The remaining 8 per cent is 'luck' or 'zeitgeist' - in short, things that are not in our hands.”

“I write in that space between Ella's childhood and mine. I know it all sounds a bit sinister.”

“I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.”

“Quality educational care grows resilient children, provides support for working families and stability for employers, makes Georgia more competitive, and invests in the workforce of the future, beginning in early childhood.”

“The 'Chronicles of Narnia' have been favourites of mine since my childhood when I misread 'Aslan' as 'Alsatian' and was struck by the genius of naming a lion after a dog!”

“I spent my whole childhood, my college years, thinking that I was going to be a doctor.”

“I love my childhood. It was a beautiful childhood.”