“Like a missing tooth, sometimes an absence is more noticeable than a presence.”
“This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”
“This is Tehran for me: its absences were more real than its presences”
“Funny how an absence can feel like a presence, like that space practically glows with her outline and make me notice how she's not here.”
“How acutely sometimes the presence or absence of people mattered”
“These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light.”