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“Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I’ve been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with language I can’t afford to forget.”
― Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
― Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
“I hear them say go home, I hear them say fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second; the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I’ll see you on the other side.”
― Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
― Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
“I saw then how I had changed. I did not mind anymore that I lost when we raced and I lost when we swam out to the rocks and I lost when we tossed spears or skipped stones. For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? It was enough to watch him win, to see the soles of his feet flashing as they kicked up sand, or the rise and fall of his shoulders as he pulled through the salt. It was enough.”
― The Song of Achilles
― The Song of Achilles
“There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.”
― The Song of Achilles
― The Song of Achilles
“No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from."
"But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?"
"You ask a question that philosophers argue over. He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?"
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles
"But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?"
"You ask a question that philosophers argue over. He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?"
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles
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