E

“Don't forget,' he says, and Abu Sayeed looks up while he translates, holding the words back a little, 'stories ease the pain of living, not dying. People always think dying is going to hurt. But it does not. It's living that hurts us.”
― Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, The Map of Salt and Stars

“I will wait by the gate until I see your face. I have waited a decade, haven't I, in this limited life? Waiting in the endless one would be no sacrifice. And Inshallah one day, I know I will see you approaching. You will look just as you did at twenty, that year you first left us, and I will also be as I was in my youth. We will look like brothers on that day. We will walk together, as equals.”
― Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place for Us

“Gradually the waiting began to feel less like waiting and more like this was simply what life was: the distracting tasks undertaken while the thing you are waiting for continues not to happen.”
― Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

“Like most people, the name history gave them isn't what they call themselves.”
― Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, The Map of Salt and Stars