“There were in life rarely, if ever, "right" decisions, never perfect ones, only the best to be made under the circumstances.”

“Its walls were mirrored, its tables marble, its espresso feral, its pastry stale.”

“Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.”

“In life, redemption was walking up the down escalator: stop to congratulate yourself, and back you slid.”

“Shut up, you fat water buffalo, rolling in the mud of other people's lives, is what she wanted to say. But she bit her tongue and reminded herself of how Mrs. Mahmoud had held her hand through Abdul's birth, which made her think that if she had found strength enough to push him out, she could hold her meanest comments in. At this moment, it seemed harder.”

“Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.”

“Sorrow can be a bully.”