Divya

“In theory, taarof means putting others before yourself. In practice, it means when someone comes to your house, you have to offer them food; but since your guest is supposed to taarof, they have to refuse; and then you, the host, must taarof back, insisting that it's really no trouble at all, and that they absolutely must eat; and so on, until one party gets too bewildered and finally gives in... It's not an American Social Cue. When Mom met Dad's parents for the first time, they offered her a drink, which she politely declined- and that was that. She really did want something to drink, but she didn't know how to go about asking.”
― Adib Khorram, Darius the Great Is Not Okay

“How could I be a tourist in my own past?”
― Adib Khorram, Darius the Great Is Not Okay

“But even as I laughed, I thought about how Mamou and Mrs. Rezaei and Sohrab had danced this dance together before. How they had celebrated Nowruz together before. How Mamou had kissed Sohrab on both cheeks and invited him inside for tea before. More times than anyone could count. My chest imploded. Just a little bit. I hated how Sohrab had a larger share of my grandmother's life than I did.”
― Adib Khorram, Darius the Great Is Not Okay

“Henry’s novel The Portrait of a Lady was written in thrall to Darwin’s idea of female choice as a force in evolution.”
― Matt Ridley, The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture – Free Will, the Human Genome, and Behavior