Ayse

“I just don’t want you to be frightened, he continued, and it was clear to any American girl that he wanted me to be frightened. I just don’t want you to be upset. I’d never let anyone upset you. I’d never let a woman that I—any woman that I know be humiliated like that, he said, and he was watching me earnestly in the elevator mirror, hoping I would be humiliated like that.”
― Noor Naga, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

“She asked me for a favor, to clip the flight feathers of her wings to the quick, and even in my frustration I was shocked. I asked her why she would do such a thing. “For grief, she said. For sorrow. When the world has changed so completely, why should I remain the same? I cannot remain. I cannot stay.”
― Nghi Vo, Mammoths at the Gates

“Only you can know if you’re doing this to escape what happened to your parents, but I can tell you this, as someone who wishes only good things for you: trying not to repeat someone else’s history is a wasteful way to live.”
― Ronan Hession, Panenka

“He dried his hair, which he wore as he had always worn it: a practical footballer’s cut, short all round with a side parting and tidy fringe, which, when it fell onto his forehead, as it did now, told him it was time for a trim. At Donnie’s nobody was ever asked what style they wanted: they simply got a shorter version of what they already had. Donnie had learned to cut hair in the army and viewed barbering as something akin to getting your toenails cut or brushing your teeth. It was a maintenance job, and not something to develop ideas about.”
― Ronan Hession, Panenka