“For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed.”

“I know she is crying. Her tears fall on the wrong side, into the bottomless well inside her.”

“The soldiers in my life had raised the bar for bad guys.”

“Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?”

“The land and everything on it can be taken away, but no one can take away your knowledge or the degrees you earn”

“We come from the land, give our love and labor to her, and she nurtures us in return. When we die, we return to the land. In a way, she owns us. Palestine owns us and we belong to her”

“Would words shatter the immensity of life and death so close to one another?”