“Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness. . . .”

“Tender," she said again. "Tender is kind and gentle. It's also sore, like the skin around an injury.”

“There is nothing between us but raw emotion, and it's painful yet has the sweet sting of addiction.”

“To by held above the earth and be brushed by the wind," she said,"it's like your heart has been kissed by beauty.”

“I write, and I feel how the correct and precise use of words is sometimes like a remedy to an illness. Like a contraption for purifying the air, I breathe in and exhale the murkiness and manipulations of linguistic scoundrels and language rapists of all shades and colors. I write and I feel how the tenderness and intimacy I maintain with language, with its different layers, its eroticism and humor and soul, give me back the person I used to be, me, before my self became nationalized and confiscated by the conflict, by governments and armies, by despair and tragedy.”

“After a minute he said, "It's like-I don't know how to describe it, but it's like I belong with Jade. She really sees me. I mean, not the outside stuff. She sees me inside, and she likes me. Nobody else has ever done that…except you.”