I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me.

It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names.

She said, 'I'm so afraid.' And I said, 'why?,' and she said, 'Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, 'They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.

Give sustenance, Allah. Give sustenance to me.

I don't know whom or what he was defying. [...] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.

I have a theory about marriage, Monsieur Boustouler. And it’s that nearly always you will know within two weeks if it’s going to work. It’s astonishing how many people remain shackled for years, decades even, in a protracted and mutual state of self-delusion and false hope when in fact they had their answer in those first two weeks.

You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.