Highlights
- There are three things you must never do in life, Enaiat. … Don’t use drugs, don’t use weapons, don’t steal.
- A desire must always be kept before your eyes, like a donkey with a carrot. … If a desire, whatever it may be, is held up high, a hand’s width from your forehead, then living will always be worthwhile.
- The hope of a better life is stronger than any feeling. My mother, for example, decided that knowing I was in danger far from her, but traveling toward a different future, was better than knowing I was in danger near her, but stuck in the mud of the same old fear.
- The teacher said nothing, stood still, waited for the engine noise to fade away, and resumed explaining mathematics from the exact point where he’d been interrupted, with the same calm voice and shy smile.
- I am a Hazara, then a Shiite, then a Muslim. … What changes your life is what happens to you, not where or with whom.
- We’re as big as a whale’s tooth. And the whales will eat us. And if they don’t eat us, the crocodiles will take care of it, even if you say there aren’t any.