Randa Abdel-Fattah Quotes

Randa Abdel-Fattah is an Australian Muslim writer of Palestinian and Egyptian parentage. Randa was born in Australia and her debut novel, Does My Head Look Big in This?, was published in 2005. Wikipedia

✵ 6. June 1979

Randa Abdel-Fattah: 12 quotes1 like

Famous Randa Abdel-Fattah Quotes

“I love the stuff and material of writing: words. The games you can play with them. The rhythm and lyricism in a good passage of writing. The power of a simple sentence. I also love the paradoxical bind of writing as both freedom and constraint. You start creating characters and scenes out of thin air. But if you do it well enough, that freedom constricts, because your characters are no longer inside you. They become their own people, agents on the page who need to act and think and feel in ways true to who they are…”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

On writing as a kind of spiritual act in “Both Freedom and Constraint: An Interview with Randa Abdel-Fattah” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/both-freedom-and-constraint-an-interview-with in Words Without Borders (May 2015)

“Belief means nothing without actions”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“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.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

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

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“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?”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“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.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“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.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

“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.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

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

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

Randa Abdel-Fattah Quotes about feelings

“The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

On being a writer in “Both Freedom and Constraint: An Interview with Randa Abdel-Fattah” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/both-freedom-and-constraint-an-interview-with in Words Without Borders (May 2015)

“Distance in time has made my voice less contrived and subjective. I don’t feel I’m writing some kind of diary (which I kind of felt I was doing when I was 16). I am far more conscious of my voice and more disciplined in separating myself from my characters…”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

On how it has changed for her writing in a teenager’s voice in “Randa Abdel-Fattah: Identity and emotion” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/randa-abdel-fattah/ in The Writer (2018 Jan 18)

“The world of adolescence was all I was interested in exploring, I suppose because there is no other period in your life when you feel as intensely. Love, hate, jealousy, loyalty: I remember the power of these emotions as a teenager and how navigating questions of identity at the same time was truly terrifying and exhilarating. Writing in that moment of a person’s life has always felt so right to me.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah

On writing young adult novels in “Randa Abdel-Fattah: Identity and emotion” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/randa-abdel-fattah/ in The Writer (2018 Jan 18)

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