“...tasting a piece of bread that someone bought is like looking at that person, but tasting a piece of bread that they baked is like looking out of their eyes.”

“Consider the difference between the first and third person in poetry [...] It's like the difference between looking at a person and looking through their eyes.”

“There's a time when things go out of tune. It's not all the time. It's not even a lot of the time. But it is some of the time. And then you have to deal with it all. Everything comes out wrong. You dream about goats and monkeys. People start to look at things wrong. Maybe you think the world looks squashed and flat. Maybe you get stones in the bulgar and you burn the smoked wheat.”

“People look at you and forget about things.”

“What about Danny Thomas?" Uncle Hal asks. "What happened to him?"Dead," Uncle Abdelhafiz says. "Nice Lebanese boy.""Never mind about Danny Thomas, look what happened to your whole family! Look at your cousin Farouq, Great Uncle Ziad, Auntie Seena and Jimmy's son Jalal," Aunt Jean cuts in disapprovingly."Dead, dead, dead, and in jail.”

“..cold, like swallowed tears.”

“There's the man with his cart who sold me rolls sprinkled with thyme and sesame every morning and then saluted me like a soldier.”