A life lived from the back seat, observed as it blured by. An indifferent life.
To see her, amid all of it. To see that contentment and beauty were not unattainable things.
Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Laila had learned a fundamental truth about time: Like the accordion on which Tariq’s father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq’s absence or presence.
Por ti lo haria mil veces mas.
Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time.
When guilt leads to good.
She remembered all too well how time had dragged without him, how she had shuffled about feeling waylaid, out of balance. How shr could ever cope with his permanent absence?
Mammy’s heart was like a pallid beach where Laila’s footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed.
Make morning into a key and throw it into the well, go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. let the morning sun forget to rise in the east, go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.
He used to wonder how such a frail little body could house so much joy, so much goodness. It couldn’t. It spilled out of her, came pouring out her eyes.
For you, a thousand times over.” Then I turned and ran. It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything alright. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. But I’ll take it. With open arms.
That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.
Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys.
For some people, particularly women, marriage-even an unhappy one such as this-is an escape from even greater unhappiness.
There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.
The lucky ones, the ones who weren’t here when the place was getting bombed to hell. We’re not like these people. We shouldn’t pretend we are. The stories these people have to tell, we’re not entitled to them.
After all, didn’t all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?
Her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the barrel pointed at her own head.
War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.
He lived in a mansion, but in a shrunken world”.