“Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.”

“Six years later my mother's absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not learned to stifle with words.”

“If every word introduces a new concept, the simple phrase "all that which does not exist" is sufficient to make everything that does not exist, exist.”

“and then Zach said a really bad word, but I doubt DeeDee noticed because it was in Farsi”

“I learned to love the feel of good words.”

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”