“Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.”

“She was simply Asha, a woman on her own. Had the situation been otherwise, she might not have come to know her own brain.”

“One of his private vanities was that all the garbage sorting had endowed his hands with killing strengththat he could chop a brick in half like Bruce Lee. So lets get a brick, replied a girl with w...”

“Zehrunisa didnt know Abduls age herself. Seventeen was what shed said before the burning, when people asked her, but he could have been twenty-seven, for all she knew. You didnt keep track of a chi...”

“But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned too far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself.”

“Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the yea...”

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

“Trust starts with truth and ends with truth.”

“And an unaware witch means a witch who doesn't know she's a witch, and because she's a women that makes her double trouble. Never trust a women." My mothers a women," I said, suddenly feeling a lit...”