Umer Hassan

“I think we talk about happiness all wrong. As if it’s this fixed state we’re going to reach. Like we’ll just be able to live there, forever. But that’s not my experience with happiness. For me, it comes and goes. It shows up and then disappears like a bubble.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“The theater hums with presence as everyone in the audience and cast alike remembers that joy and grief are human birthrights, but mostly, being alive, is everything in between.”
― Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

“To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

“It reminds me that as long as the lemon trees grow, hope will never die.”
― Zoulfa Katouh, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow