Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place.

Sleep is a prison for a boy who has friends to meet.

So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement.

Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again

She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.