First person Quote by Hala Alyan

“The world was addicted to watching; over and over, they were reborn, made whole and silver and resplendent, only to crumple into themselves again.…

— Hala Alyan

“He can feel their eyes upon him. Poor innocent things, he thinks. What is a life? A series of yeses and noes, photographs you…

— Hala Alyan

“It started off as ordinary, a little boy fretting. Abdullah asked only Riham, who’d become Mama, soothing him when he woke from nightmares. She…

— Hala Alyan

“But he loves the mosque for its dusty smell, for the carpet prickling his feet, for the predictable hum of the muezzin more than…

— Hala Alyan

“Atef wants to tell his children that they don’t understand, that their view from the sidelines is incomplete, that somehow in the murky cave…

— Hala Alyan

“Parallel lives, she sometimes thinks. It was a matter of parallel lives, one person having lamb for supper, the other cucumbers. With fate deciding,…

— Hala Alyan

“where your father was from. America wasn’t like that. You became what you coveted.”

— Hala Alyan

“She feels the anger quiet into a briny resentment. The bitterness floats like an inkblot in her mind’s eye.”

— Hala Alyan

“It fascinates Manar—not just history”

— Hala Alyan

“She winds her hair into a bun, tilts her long neck back, and parts her lips. It is like watching someone paint the sky.”

— Hala Alyan

“grandmother’s building. When she was in bed sometimes, her small heart pounding just before she fell into sleep, she felt an endless plummet, as…

— Hala Alyan

“That night, when she saw too late her mistake, all those moments that make love and destroy it. Her younger self, almost a mother,…

— Hala Alyan