“Islam began as something strange and it has now returned to being something strange, so everyone should make sure to stick to the strangers, and to be amongst those who are called ‘insane’ and ‘ignorant’ and ‘stupid’ by the majority of mankind”

“The Prophets, too, among us come to teach,Are one with those who from the pulpit preach;They pray, and slay, and pass away,and yet Our ills are as the pebbles on the beach.Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,The truth entire nor here nor there can be;How should our God who made the sun and the moonGive all his light to One, I cannot see.”

“You should prize this pain of yours. This is what will make you human all the way through. Nothing less will do that.”

“here and therein the barrios and the favelas,among those who have least,beat hearts of hope,fly sparks of Overcoming. ”

“Creativity. Taking something enormously strange and somehow making it strangely familiar.”

“Satan puts three knots at the back of the head of any of you if he is asleep. On every knot he reads and exhales the following words, ‘The night is long, so stay asleep.’ When one wakes up and remembers Allah, one knot is undone; and when one performs ablution, the second knot is undone, and when one prays the third knot is undone and one gets up energetic with a good heart in the morning; otherwise one gets up lazy and with a mischievous heart.”

“She stares at her knife and wishes she were smarter about things. Wishes she knew how to say something wise or consoling to him, something that wouldn't sound frightened or awkward. But then she remembers the time after her parents' death, when people would approach her and try to explain her loss to her; they said things that were supposed to cure her of her sadness, but that had no effect at all. And she knew then, even when she was nine years old, that there was no wise or consoling thing to say. There were certain helpful kinds of silences, and some were better than others. ”