Quotes by Ruth Ahmed, When Ali Met Honour

“I had to be an adult, be a father without a son, so for one last moment I needed to be a son who needed his mother.”

“Honour and I would have to create our world, live by our own rules. My family wasn't ready for her just yet. I didn't know if they ever would be.”

“Look, my son, she is so beautiful, she has fair skin and green eyes and brown hair.''She's English?' I asked cheekily, holding the cheap photo print with trepidation. Which unfortunate victim had t...”

“Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely c...”

“The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up...”

“As the days dwindled towards the end of the week I knew only one thing: I couldn't return to our old life. Haroon had taken Honour and Al with him,”

“People don't really change, they just adapt to circumstances.”

“My heart was in my mouth. I realised that I had no desire to know any more about her past. What was behind her made me feel sick, petrified. Only the future mattered now.”

“They say some couples are joined in heaven, and on Earth they look for their partner soul to be with.I knew I had found mine in her. And who can fight heaven?”

“The fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fires of the iron.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?''No,' I said quickly.Deny Honour again. Peter only denied Jesus three times. I must have denied Honour like three thousand times.”

“There was a time when I was lucky enough to believe that 'There's this girl in Pakistan' would be the worst five words that Al ever said to me. Years later, they would be totally eclipsed by 'They ...”

“Honour looked so much like a child herself, confined to bed, a white nightgown, like one of those maudlin Victorian dolls. Her cheeks were red, like someone had painted them, but I knew it was from...”

“Ruby clapped her hands in glee and gave a comedic wiggle of her head, Bollywood style.I know the song now, can even sing it, but back then all I heard was the verdant Punjabi, the striking primary ...”

“I needed a fresh start, away from the memories that we had made for him, away from the home that didn't feel like my own anymore.Away from the people that had been ready to welcome him. Away from H...”

“Five words that were the hardest words I would ever have to say,Five pillars of my faith that couldn't save him that day.Five rivers, the Panj Aab, that didn't flow through his veins.Five minutes t...”

“I drank in his smell, I'd missed him so much more than I'd realised. Despite dreaming of him every night, besides my secret habit of writing Honour Hussain in curled scripts on every scrap piece of...”

“Do you ever look up at the stars and try to contemplate the ends of the universe?”

“9/11 forced us to build another identity, to look deep and say who are we and what do we believe and is killing in the name of Islam part of that religion?No. No. No.”

“It was things like that I remembered about Ruby, the incongruity, the struggle to find herself.No matter what she wore though she was always Ruby, always herself.”