I have this almost pathological fear of boring the reader.

Then I think of all the tricks, all the minutes all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can't breathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart, Laila. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.

Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock. And

the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion

The finger cut, to save the hand.

I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter.