Skip to content

But when your situation is hopeless, all you can do is turn the world upside down, transform it according to your wishes, and create anew.

— Fatema Mernissi Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

Another quote →

More quotes by Fatema Mernissi

But since then, looking for the frontier has become my life’s occupation. Anxiety eats at me whenever I cannot situate the geometric line organizing my powerlessness.”

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

She would take him to faraway lands to observe foreign ways, so he could get closer to the strangeness within himself.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful.

The French do not imprison their wives behind walls, my dear mother-in-law,' she would say. 'They let them run wild in the local souk (market), and everyone had fun, and sill the work gets done'"

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

There are many ways to be beautiful. Fighting, swearing, and ignoring tradition could make a women irresistible.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994)

All Fatema Mernissi quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Fatema Mernissi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.