Quotes from Gian Sardar

You love them for who they are, sure. That's the easy part. But you also love them despite who they are. That's the important part.

You earn your place beside someone by not walking away. Even when all you want to do is run.

If I am to be with someone forever, it will be because I cannot stay away. Right or wrong. There will be no choice.

The in love part of the first few months. That is when they can do no wrong and your stomach jumps and everything is bliss. But really, truly, loving someone? To me? What in love becomes? That's deeper. That's when they can do wrong and it's not always sunshine. You love them for who they are, sure. That's the easy part. But you also love them despite who they are.

In her childhood, the grass was green. There were cleats and freshly laundered jerseys with silly team names and sliced oranges on the sideline. And to see the differences, to find these beautiful boys worthy of curiosity, of examination—it's the core of her chosen profession but it feels like human sightseeing. A tour of others. Look at these poor boys, happy despite everything.

We grew up next door. He's been there since the start. If I show him a scar, he remembers the blood.

there is no denying luck. That you were born where you were. That you can choose. That you have the privilege of being bored. And do not have to leave your family. Or save your family." "What if I can't make up for that?" "Who says you have to? Sometimes living is all you have to do. Besides, you'd be surprised how you can save someone.

Neanderthal graves. Bones beneath her feet, perhaps. The rocks in the garden would've once been larger, bright and shadowed with early-human firelight, and the land around them would've seemed empty and forever. There'd have been no concept of oceans. No awareness of planets. And here, right before her, are those same silhouettes of mountains, the same spikes of peaks. A shared view, glimpsed across time.

the field, she catches a flash of silver: the bride's sisters and friends are dancing with knives. "They're dancing with knives." He turns. "They're about to cut the cake. That's to let him know they can handle knives. That he should be good to their sister. That they will protect her." "A warning." "Kurds aren't known for being subtle.

If it's too much to see how big a problem is, then don't. Get closer. Make it smaller." With his chin, he motions to the room. "Here. What you can do today. Look for that. For the people around you, because they will wake up, and they will remember.

In the last decade, most of her friends—even those who'd not gone to war—had let the concept of God be beaten away in torrents of Vietnamese rain, burned in the jungles, or obliterated in a blast that claimed a village. A world of such atrocities could not be under the jurisdiction of a compassionate God, and who wanted to believe in an uncompassionate God?

Do you know there's no word in Kurdish for plan? You get worried if someone's on time, because it means they have bad news. Or they want something. Also, I said I might come. Not that I would.

The stewardess's lips shine, glossed and pink and perfect. But when she smiles, there's a smudge of color on her tooth. Olivia taps her own tooth to indicate the streak, and the stewardess nods a thank-you. People who keep quiet in such situations, who let others walk around with wedged-in poppy seeds or toothpaste on their chins, those people are a different breed. The ones who either value their own comfort above all or who feel themselves rise when others fall.

when you love, you see what you love, not necessarily what's there.

She cannot know him. Not truly... And though she knows that's the case for everyone, for no one can exist within another's mind or skin, it's how far apart they are in their history, their beliefs, that ultimately matters. After all, it's the distance of separation that creates the impact.

Loss keeps going, you know? It doesn't just stop with what was taken from you. It grabs new things all the time. You think you're up against missing the memories, all that happened, but Christ if you don't miss all that didn't happen even more.

Better to be worried and ready." "Is it? Sometimes I think it's better to just never see it coming. Why end on a worry?

One second of true fear beats hours of anything else.

What if you wake up only to die that day?

You cannot tell me me.

A confluence. Something underestimated that's found its power. And she will remember this day with the birds in the sky, that sometimes you must stop and look up because magic exists whether you see it or not, and it's so much better to get the glimpse. And so she will.

Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.

The sounds: hollering, singing, music playing. Even the women are like bright chimes when they walk, gold adornments jingling. Throughout it all, the groom's family waits with horses for the bride, who eventually arrives in a bold red dress and a red veil edged in gold, walking behind a man who carries a giant mirror bright with her reflection. After a lifetime of weddings in white ordered silence, the day is a beautiful shock.