“Each couple is its own vaudeville act.”

“This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?”

“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.”

“Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of one's own resources.”

“Cos if it's encyclopedias we've got enough, like, information... and if it's God, you've got the wrong house.”

“They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.”

“Nowadays I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.”