“I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.”

“There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.”

“When I am introduced as someone from New Orleans, people sometimes say: "I'm so sorry."New Orleans. I'm so sorry.That's not the way it was before,not the way it's supposed to be. When people find out you're from New Orleans, they're supposed to tell you about how they got drunk there once, or fell in love there, or first heard the music there that changed their lives. At worst people would say: "I've always wanted to go there."But now, it's just: "I'm sorry."Man, that kills me. That just kills me.”

“From every wound there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says, "I survived".”

“She's a nice girl," Tennessee said as a way of saying goodbye to them, as a way of saying thank you and I'm sorry, as a way of saying, I wish I had never let you go and I wish we had never met.”

“A man to whom a woman cannot look up, she cannot love. Yet, it is marvelous how a woman contrives to find something to look up to in a man.”