“What if the only non-humans the two-legs know," she mused, "are the Cousin-kind? How stupid they would believe all others who walk the earth to be!”

“Soldier on guard says they've identified “someone on two legs a hundred metres from the outpost”. The other soldier, in the lookout, says “A girl about ten,” but by then they're already shooting. Girl's dead[...]The point is this use of code, on two legs, denoting human. It reminded me of that speech by their Prime Minister saying that we were beasts walking on two legs [...]The idea that having legs makes you human. I thought of adding a Primo Levi-ish dimension to it. Merging this two-legged idea with a sort of general question about what is a man, you know, linking it to “if this is a man who labours in the mud/ who knows no peace/ who fights for a crust of bread?” [...] my thesis being that the occupation, the closures, the siege have made amputees of all of us, crawling around in the mud. Legless in Gaza. The lot of us.”

“What the future held for her she didn't know. Of two things only she was certain. There would be children-her own or other people's-and there would be books.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

“We were given: Two hands to hold. Two legs to walk. Two eyes to see. Two ears to listen. But why only one heart? Because the other was given to someone else. For us to find.”

“His muse walked the streets with the others but she wore galoshes and was terribly afraid of being recognized.”