Gian Sardar > Quotes

“You love them for who they are, sure. That’s the easy part. But you also love them despite who they are. That’s the important part.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“You earn your place beside someone by not walking away. Even when all you want to do is run.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“If I am to be with someone forever, it will be because I cannot stay away. Right or wrong. There will be no choice.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“It was not their fault either,” Soran says. “The families who were moved in. Everyone a pawn in a political agenda.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“the field, she catches a flash of silver: the bride’s sisters and friends are dancing with knives. “They’re dancing with knives.” He turns. “They’re about to cut the cake. That’s to let him know they can handle knives. That he should be good to their sister. That they will protect her.” “A warning.” “Kurds aren’t known for being subtle.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“Neanderthal graves. Bones beneath her feet, perhaps. The rocks in the garden would’ve once been larger, bright and shadowed with early-human firelight, and the land around them would’ve seemed empty and forever. There’d have been no concept of oceans. No awareness of planets. And here, right before her, are those same silhouettes of mountains, the same spikes of peaks. A shared view, glimpsed across time.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“It’s too bad we’re not able to be friends with our parents before becoming their children, isn’t it?”
― Gian Sardar, When the World Goes Quiet

“Sometimes the truth hurts worse than the lie.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“If it’s too much to see how big a problem is, then don’t. Get closer. Make it smaller.” With his chin, he motions to the room. “Here. What you can do today. Look for that. For the people around you, because they will wake up, and they will remember.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“Loss keeps going, you know? It doesn’t just stop with what was taken from you. It grabs new things all the time. You think you’re up against missing the memories, all that happened, but Christ if you don’t miss all that didn’t happen even more.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“You’re only as good as your worst moment.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“there is no denying luck. That you were born where you were. That you can choose. That you have the privilege of being bored. And do not have to leave your family. Or save your family.” “What if I can’t make up for that?” “Who says you have to? Sometimes living is all you have to do. Besides, you’d be surprised how you can save someone.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“In her childhood, the grass was green. There were cleats and freshly laundered jerseys with silly team names and sliced oranges on the sideline. And to see the differences, to find these beautiful boys worthy of curiosity, of examination—it’s the core of her chosen profession but it feels like human sightseeing. A tour of others. Look at these poor boys, happy despite everything.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“People need to be saved from themselves, he often says. Everyone holds the cards to their own downfall.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“It’s never about money until it is. And it always is.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“We grew up next door. He’s been there since the start. If I show him a scar, he remembers the blood.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“I’ll never understand how the strongest people are simply undone by love.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“The in love part of the first few months. That is when they can do no wrong and your stomach jumps and everything is bliss. But really, truly, loving someone? To me? What in love becomes? That’s deeper. That’s when they can do wrong and it’s not always sunshine. You love them for who they are, sure. That’s the easy part. But you also love them despite who they are.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“Do you know there’s no word in Kurdish for plan? You get worried if someone’s on time, because it means they have bad news. Or they want something. Also, I said I might come. Not that I would.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“Love”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“Instinct. That elusive center an overthinker tends to dart around. Now, recalling their start, she remembers that initial pull to him. Not just attraction, though that was there as well. But a whole-being pull. Cells moving. Mind consumed.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“everything you do is so life places that child in your arms.”
― Gian Sardar, When the World Goes Quiet

“But I’m telling you, you can’t see the valley when you’re in the middle of climbing the hill.”
― Gian Sardar, When the World Goes Quiet

“The reality of this world is that tragedy occurs undocumented and daily, and what happened this evening was a mere flash within a greater explosion and is one most people will never know took place.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“A confluence. Something underestimated that’s found its power. And she will remember this day with the birds in the sky, that sometimes you must stop and look up because magic exists whether you see it or not, and it’s so much better to get the glimpse. And so she will.”
― Gian Sardar, Take What You Can Carry

“What has more impact”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“Can you love someone’s art and not them?”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“justice and a happy ending.”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“Frankie wishes she could pull over and ask these people if it helps to think that anything is possible, or if the more important lesson is that struggle is a part of everyone's life, and there is no such thing as perfection. What has more impact, the value of a dream or the cost of a lie?”
― Gian Sardar, Land of Dreams

“imagine a life without what you love is hard.”
― Gian Sardar, When the World Goes Quiet