“And (HAMAS) instead offered alternative ideas on how to both confront Israel without surrendering and govern the Palestinians without corruption.”

“The United States allegedly presses for democratic change in the region, and when it happens, democracy brings to power anti-US parties.”

“A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her.”

“You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a littele”

“Laila imagines she sees little Mariam there in the hut as a woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but SHAPED by by the turbulence that washes over her.”

“The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.”

“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.”