“But it was fantasy, and she knew it. It was her fantasy, and the fantasy of everyone else who would look at her and at her pictures; and it would stop being real the moment the man with the camera stopped clicking.”

“Even in the darkness of the closed box she felt trapped inside, she could see light shining in through tiny holes on the lid.They were like the stars beckoning her towards a place where all would be simple . . . away from the shadows, away from the darkness.”

“It all fell away then – the control, the independence . . . everything. She had known it would never be easy to findsolitude . . . to find herself. Not in this city, where appearances were everything; where emptiness filled luxurious landscapes till there was nothing but hollow splendor…She hated the pretense.More than hatred, she was frightened of it.”

“People live to love; but then they realize that love is nothing. Love is just desire and longing; the culmination of a moment where everything falls into place. The moment passes. Things fall out of place.”

“This was the Karachi now – barbed wires protecting consulates, the pretentious covering themselves with faces of those who were hiding behind those barbed wires. This was Karachi – gaudy and luxurious, with a façade of glamor, ignoring the truth underneath. But Sophie was no cynic, and still loved the city she had returned to. ‘You can’t hate what’s yours,’ she smiled to herself.”

“Worry looks back, Hope looks forward, but Faith always looks up.”

“Time is immaterial. It is immortal.Time never chose people to define their lives with it. That was humanity’s choice. That was when man gave Time the control of everything, and ceased to control it himself. Time never tires, but it ensures that it tires man. That’s how it controls humanity.It creates hopelessness for man.”