Jane Ross

“Widad and Alia and Mustafa, they might have known gunfire and war, but they were protected from it with the armor of wealth. It is what separates them from the refugees in the camps dotting the outskirts of Nablus. Salma still holds her breath, her childhood defense against bad luck, when she has to drive past them.”
― Hala Alyan, Salt Houses

“diaspora, there were people over here being Palestinian. At checkpoints,”
― Hala Alyan, Salt Houses

“Nostalgia is an affliction. Someone said that once in front of Alia, and the words reach her now, years later. Like a fever or a cancer, the longing for what had vanished wasting a person away. Not just the unbearable losses, but the small things as well. Alia thinks of her bedroom in Nablus. The seashells she filled with bobby pins.”
― Hala Alyan, Salt Houses

“How tiny our lives are, he thinks, swelling to impossible size with love, then shrinking again. He puts an arm around his daughter and pulls her close, this girl he will lose eventually to something. She settles against him. For long moments, they sit together in the dark, watching the”
― Hala Alyan, Salt Houses