Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.

i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

I have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person's heart

I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that you were ashamed of me.

Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.

If I ever do get married," Tariq said, "they'll have to make room for three on the wedding stage. Me, the bride, and the guy holding the gun to my head