Dina Khatib’s Reviews > The Parisian > Status Update

“A true first meeting required modesty; a first meeting after time had passed required boasting."

“Then the drumbeats invaded her chest again”

“He wanted to be a body that did nothing but work, with no space left over in his mind to ruminate.”

“Regrets pile on regrets.”

“Doubt was a sign: if one doubted, one must not do.”

“Midhat waited, close to amazement. As if he had just watched a glass bowl fall and smash, and was not yet able to believe its shattered fragments were irrevocable”

“all the features of the landscape were unified in shadow, and the lamps of the interior turned the window into a mirror that reflected back their faces.”

“All the same, he had forfeited his high ground. Was it a game of one-upmanship, of who could be more annoyed with whom?”

“So he waited, exhausted by a perpetual state of readiness”

“Clearly professional advancement was not enough to motivate Frédéric Molineu; for that he required a rival with a face.”