“And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.”

“In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.”

“One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.”

“But coming close wasn't the same as winning, was it? ... He had won because winners won and everyone else just went home”

“Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.”

“But Mariam hardly noticed, hardly cared...the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that Love was a damaging mistake and its accomplice, Hope, a treacherous illusion.”

“Then I think of all the tricks, all the minutes all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can't breathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart, Laila. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.”