He was a man too busy to flush toilets.

Reading-not occasionally, not only on vacation but everyday-gives me nourishment and enlarges my life in mysterious and essential ways.

Love ruined people's lives, the way our parents said drugs could.

The first person besides my mother who believed in me was a man whose last name I never knew. He was my boss, the manager of Swenson's Ice Cream shop.

I knew I would hate my best memory because it would prove that people could fake love or that love could end or worst of all, love was not powerful enough to change a life.

So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn't matter anymore, forever after

Once upon a time, my mother lived in the posh downtown of Homs, Syria. She described my grandfather as a king in a storybook, atop a horse, wearing a didashah and pointing a long arm.