Cozy Reading Times

“Some won't want to root for a Palestinian chick wrestling with the best white culture has to offer, miffed that I dare to stage their tragedies as if they were comedies.”
― Betty Shamieh, Too Soon

“I would never trust that my world wouldn't be turned upside down, that racism wouldn't make it so that every generation in my family would have to start over from the bottom and claw our way back to the top. But I also felt the unshakable confidence that comes from living through that experience. We might have to start over, penniless, but we were of the ilk that knew we could.”
― Betty Shamieh, Too Soon

“In the end, I was my mother's daughter. We had never been angels, nor did we aspire to be.”
― Betty Shamieh, Too Soon

“Feeling lost is not a reason to have kids," the wise and prescient boy tells her. "It's not fair to them."
What neither says-but both know to be true—is that the girl is the kind of creature who has never seen the world as fair and, therefore, she was not required to be.”
― Betty Shamieh, Too Soon