“But the Alim laughed at this. 'And we know who they are. Allah have pity on the Anglicans! Samad, when the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away,' said the Alim, shaking his head. 'And one third of his religion.”

“When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.”

“Sometimes Allah punishes and sometimes men have to do it, and it is a wise man who knows if it's Allah's turn or his own.”

“Some people--Samad for example--will tell you not to trust people who overuse the phrase "at the end of the day"--football managers, estate agents, salesmen of all kinds--but Archie's never felt that way about it. Prudent use of said phrase never failed to convince him that his interlocutor was getting to the bottom of things, to the fundamentals.”

“The fate of the young man in his headphones, who faced a jail cell that very night, did not seem such a world away from his own predicament: an anniversary party full of academics.”

“Ahhh, now, you see, we’ve been through this, and my thought is this: there’s no smoke without fire,” Archie would say, looking impressed by the wisdom of his own conclusion. “Know what I mean?” This was one of Archie’s preferred analytic tools when confronted with news stories, historical events, and the tricky day-to-day process of separating fact from fiction. There’s no smoke without fire. There was something so vulnerable in the way he relied on this conviction, that Samad never had the heart to disabuse him of it. Why tell an old man that there can be smoke without fire as surely as there are deep wounds that draw no blood?”

“You are never stronger, thought Samad as approached the doctor, than when you land on the other side of despair.”