She spoke quietly then, the tiniest crack in her voice, and all at once Lacey Pemerton was not Lacey Pemberton. She was just—like, a person.

In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.

Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself

There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics.

It is curious how much more interest can be evoked by a mixture of gossip, romance and mystery than by facts.

There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.