She needs a new journal. The one she has is problematic. To get to the present, she needs to page through the past, and when she does, she remembers things, and her new journal entries become, for the most part, reactions to the days she regrets, wants to correct, rewrite.

Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.

Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?

There are many Saudi women doctors, and there are many wealthy and powerful and well-educated Saudi women who circumvent the restrictions put upon them, quietly or otherwise.

Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me.

Then he got more books. He saved all the books.

We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.