maryam’s Reviews > If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English > Status Update

“They think dating is about love, when any New Yorker will tell you that dating is a martial art. It’s basic offense and defense. As with any contact sport, the proximity may coincidentally transform strangers into intimates, but this is not its primary intention. In English, there’s an entire vocabulary for the purpose of analyzing minute tactics and maneuvers…”

Those outside a language, of a culture, see furniture through a window and believe it is a room. But those inside know there are infinite rooms just out of View, and that they can always be more deeply inside.

“ it’s as though the city were deliberately designed to resist comprehension and to discipline those who left for daring to return. You have either lived here, and you know, or you never have and never will.”

“This desperation to refashion ourselves into the most pleasing inform makes fools of us both. We are pliable and capricious, shed our skin at the slightest threat, and ultimately stick out everywhere we go.”