Manal Al Sharif Quotes

“The rain begins with a single drop”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“Freedom is to live with dignity”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“How beautiful it is to live in a world with no walls.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“I was lonely, desperate, and angry. At that moment, I truly understood what it meant to be a Saudi woman. It meant being confronted with every possible kind of
obstacle and discrimination. It meant being told that if you want to race with men, you’d have to do it with your hands and legs cut off. I started to wish I had been born somewhere—anywhere—else.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“Because my mother couldn't change my present, I decided to change my daughter's future”
― Manal al-Sharif

“We were like captive animals that had lost the will to fight. We even went so far as to defend the very constraints that they had
imposed upon us.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“She took my papers, the papers that had followed me from the Khobar police station to jail, and pointed at a place where I was supposed to sign. On the paper there was a line for charges. In the blank space, someone had written “driving while female.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“I got a text from my husband. “Manal, you are divorced,” it read. “Your papers are in the court of Khobar.” I was divorced in my absence, just as I had been married.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“The axiomatic thing about Saudi society is that while there are a seemingly infinite number of rules, it is also possible for people in authority to go outside those rules, and, if not break them, at least bend them quite a bit.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

“So you’re the infamous Manal al-Sharif,” he said, eyeing me from behind his desk. “Aren’t you ashamed of what you did?”
“Is driving a car something shameful?” I answered back.”
― Manal al-Sharif, Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening