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On Fragile Waves QUOTES

On Fragile Waves QUOTES

1 " There was perhaps no other school in the greater Melbourne area, perhaps no other school in Australia, that had so many children of war. Some shy, some loud, some laughing, some quiet—and every one of them on a hair trigger. Every one of them swallowing barrels and buckets of the wrath, frustration, grief, and shame that other Year 6 students sipped in juice-box amounts. "

― , On Fragile Waves

2 " Wherever the good letters had fallen like stars, souls flashed forth from formerly blank faces. People danced in puddles, muddy to their waists. Kissed each other. Clasped hands. Spoke tenderly. Wept. "

― , On Fragile Waves

3 " Anyone can suffer. But joy--that's hard. Ask about joy. "

― , On Fragile Waves

4 " I ask you, what is the difference between war and not-war when there is no music "

― , On Fragile Waves

5 " Once a man and a woman drowned in each other’s eyes on dry land, and no one could figure out how they died. "

― , On Fragile Waves

6 " You put bits of stories together to make a home or a family. Some you’re given, and some you make by living. A nightmare is when the ugliest, most ferocious pieces clump together and go hunting for other stories to eat. Firuzeh said: You can’t fight a story. You can. Break a nightmare into its little bits of story, and, bam, no more nightmare. "

― , On Fragile Waves

7 " when time is no time at all and everything must be said in the breath between "

― , On Fragile Waves

8 " No, see, both of those options have come and gone. But here we are, still waiting. All of us had something to wait for, and that kept us going. Now we don’t. Now the minutes of our lives are wasted. Time scrapes our nerves. It hurts. How it hurts. "

― , On Fragile Waves

9 " I tried, Nasima said, but they didn’t see me. Like when I was alive. I was a daughter-shaped space in the universe. You feed it. You put shoes and dresses on it. You raise it properly, like a sheep, so you can take it to market someday. But you don’t see her, you don’t see your daughter, not really. Not the way you see your sons. Who are worth something. Who’ll work someday. "

― , On Fragile Waves

10 " If Firuzeh married a snake who was also a man, wouldn’t you try to make him less snake and more man? "

― , On Fragile Waves

11 " When you have nothing and no reason to hope, when the odds are impossible and not one but two governments stand against you, how do you laugh? How do you see beauty? How do you still show kindness and love? "

― , On Fragile Waves