In her smile, Idris sees how little of the world he has known, even at thirty-five years of age, its savageness, its cruelty, its boundless brutality.

Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.

For you, a thousand times over

J’aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. 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.

Though there were moments of beauty, Mariam knew for the most part that life had been unkind to her.

It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.