“Fiction gives us a reach into the lives of individuals that would otherwise be but a closed door. If we are gifted with a desire to tell tales, then we should tell them . . . if only to reach but a few.”

“humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift.”

“We may have given to us, in this life, a few things that will give us satisfaction, temporally; but the things that are eternal, the things that are "worth while", are those eternal things that we reach out for, and prepare ourselves to receive, and lay hold of by the effort that we individually make.”

“Past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully. My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise. If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.”

“We are all farsighted, we give importance to those things that are far from us, while neglecting the things that are close to us... only to realize their value later when they are out-of-reach again...”

“It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.”