“People know your tragedies and they treat you like you’re not human. Like you’re a three-headed goat. A monster from some other planet. They keep reminding you of your pain. You see how they look at me? They’re stuck on that person I used to be. They can’t see that old life as just a moment in time that I’ve moved on from. It was a horrible life.”

“I heard you on the phone with her. I happened to be in your arms, and you happened to be inside of me, balls deep from what I remember, so I felt the difference, felt what you felt for her, heard how your voice changed when you talked to her.”

“People know your tragedies and they treat you like you’re not human. Like you’re a three-headed goat. A monster from some other planet. They keep reminding you of your pain. You see how they look at me? They’re stuck on that person I used to be. They can’t see that old life as just a moment in time that I’ve moved on from. It was a horrible life.”

“It’s scary telling someone you care about, someone you love who you really are.”

“It is silent, an anagram for listen. That is what I do. Listen while she remains silent.”

“We see what we want to see. We idealize each other with our own fantasies.”

“A woman of European heritage sporting a preacher's collar had the opposite effect of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab. She used her privilege and the favored religion to look like a golden child.”

“I went to public school but kept to myself. When you live in a brothel, you don't want anyone coming to your home.”

“Some crazy man came up to me and started screaming at me about how he hated Allah, and before I could tell him that my family was part of the Catholic Church in India, he knifed me.”

“hate isn't healthy, it damages the hater more than the one who's hated!”

“And a woman needs a man to protect her from other men. Well, women used to. . . . Things have changed. Women are in the middle East, fighting and protecting men now.”