“You and I, your mother, Ahlam, we are from up there,' my father continued. 'We come from the stunning stars. We were… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“The earth spins further from help. Beyond us the heart monitors go on, the fluorescent lights buzz, the commentators shout, the casino… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“Look at the lonely fisherman,' my father says. 'Look at his view,' my mother says.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I saw Sonora before me, so otherworldly, so desolate, some cast-out mistress on the pale blue planet, and longed suddenly to stay.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“With this man I will never want. With this man I will never be sad again.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“It was all so foolish then, as it is now, as it is forever. To be in love with beauty. To try… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I slowly lost any dream for myself. No one warned me of this, that the stars in New York can infect the… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“It was so pure, the snow, the purest of all powders, I thought, so pure it must be from elsewhere, from another… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“He could guide anyone to the point of no return. He'd corral them with poetry, music, invoking the alcoholic gods that all… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“There is no moon. The stars have risen and fallen and given way to a new spread, to the smeared heart of… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I loved the abandoned subway stations, rushing past the darkened platforms, the sprawl of graffiti like old letters. Letters left by ghosts.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“No one had told me that you can wake up, years passed, and not understand the person you are, the things you… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I faded out. I was for a moment my father tapping on his cigarette, the way he holds it, crushing it flat.… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“My father, a Palestinian, and my mother, an Israeli, met in a bar in New York. Their encounter was a blue shift.… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“Don't fall in love or let anyone's life become more important than your own.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“We remained talking, fighting gently or viciously for what seemed like hours, but it was only minutes or perhaps a second, because… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“Our past would dissolve. We would move on from each other and from the ghosts of our youth.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“Like hunting for a dead beloved's face among the living, in places, we find the place we loved before.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I inherited this longing. I was addicted to it. And so I was at home with those who wanted and never had… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I wanted to walk faster, to run, far as possible from her, from my entire life, from the first day I ever… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“For those I come from, there is nothing more devouring than the feeling of want for home, the feeling of need for… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“His presence suddenly made things feel off-kilter, gorgeous as if being crushed in lush velvet while cascading off the edge of a… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I meditated on my childhood, vague and distant before high school, where Laura still flickered only on the edge of things.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“What if we love the black hole in the center of all things? What if we are people like that? People who… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I looked at Laura . . . and wondered at how many lives before this life we might have known together.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I first understood why Christians prayed for a savior in the form of a beautiful man. He had absolved me of the blue-streaked blond.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“We would survive even ourselves, as long as we were together.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I lit a cigarette. 'Go ahead, take a smoke,' my father said. 'It won't kill you. Only sadness will.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“With the years, we become even more ourselves and call this change.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“When you are rich, your past disappears. You get everything you want when you want it . . . Everyone wants to know you.… — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I look out at the reservation, still and glittering with casinos, and think of all the death dried up and buried in its dirt.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“Her father kneels and unclasps the urn. Above the waves she falls graceful as snow, my sister, my Sonora.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“One day you look in the mirror and you see your parents' sadness in your eyes.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
“I am a memory house for those I have lost, those I no longer know.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi Copy Share Image
