96 Quotes by Kamila Shamsie

"Those Genes Could Have Been Mine."

"He put his arm around me. That was all. He put his arm around me and we didn’t say a word."

"Why didn’t you stay?” she had whispered against the unyielding stone. Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay? Sajjad stood up quietly and walked over to her. “There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming ‘ghum-khaur’ – grief-eaters – who take in the mourner’s sorrow."

"Konrad had been right to say barriers were made of metal that could turn fluid when touched simultaneously by people on either side."

"The world won’t get more or less terrible if we’re indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate."

"This is the worst of our ways of remembering – this tendency to prod the crust of anecdote in the hope of releasing a gush of piping-hot symbolism."