Aminah Mae Safi Quotes

You gave me books and articles. You keep telling me not to forget I'm Arab. But it's not just the white people reminding me who I am, Baba. Arabs remind me I'm not one of them too. This world may never let me forget I am Arab, but it will also keep me from belonging as one of them.

It's kind of amazing what you can do when you decided you can't fail.

James reminded Lulu of things best forgotten, of the cost of survival and the price of high living. Lulu had paid the price by trading in her tongue. Lo had cut out her heart. Audrey, who had been born into this world, had no ability to see beyond its borders. Emma alone seemed untouched by any kind of deal with the devil. But Lulu didn't believe that to be true. Nobody could go without paying the price. The prize of being accepted into the fold of the one-day rich and powerful was too tempting, too all-encompassing. Emma's bargain must have been the worst of all to stay so neat and invisible.

You've always been my independent one. You hold in so much. You aren't who anyone decides you are. You aren't how anyone treats you. You have to find peace in that. It's not easy, but you do.

Everybody wants to be somebody's Yoda.

No, I'm not angry. I'm furious. Livid. I'm beyond. If anger were the circles of hell, I'd be sitting there in the ninth one with fucking Lucifer himself. No. I'd kick Lucifer out. I'd be too angry for Lucifer. For fucking Satan. Do you get me?

Of strangers asking her over and over again what she was. Like a piece of flora or fauna. Like she was missing her proper taxonomy.

All the Arabic I know. Pshhhh. Besides, between the two of us combined we've got the vocabulary of at least a three-year-old', Miriam huffed. 'Between the two of us,' Lulu said, flourishing her hand, 'we are at least one whole terrorist.

I can't go around proving I'm American to everyone I meet. That's too exhausting. And, I'm Arab too. It's in-between. I'm in between. It doesn't come with a neat package or a support group. It just is. I can't change it. And even If I could, I wouldn't.

I don't fit. And sometimes that's the worst-knowing I'll never fit; nowhere will ever feel comfortable and nowhere will ever accept me all the way.

Tragedy was in their bones.

They will tell us we can be better than queens of the wild great something. They already told us we couldn't be fairy princesses or white knights or dragon slayers. They will tell us to grow up, be serious. They will tell us to fight for a spot at the table. But now, we don't. We desecrate their tables. We dance on tables. We take really big swords and hack those tables into tiny little pieces.

They told her the attack was her fault. She was Iraqi, wasn't she, they had accused. They knew she was Muslim. Her fault, they had kept on, the dirty little terrorist, the conspiring towel head. Lulu had stood for the first time, at a loss for words. Worse than hearing the words from hateful strangers-she had heard the poisonous words from boys she'd grown up with, boys she'd kissed, boys she'd had crushes on, boys she'd tasted her first alcohol with, boys she'd wrestled with for control of the tv remote.

Strangers, at least, she could have ignored.

She should have felt punched in the stomach. But she hadn't. She should have screamed and yelled back at them. But she hadn't. Instead, she had stood there, dazed and stupid, while wondering if all those years she'd thought she belonged there she had been terribly, horribly mistaken. The relatives who died fighting tyranny had choked the words in her throat. Her heart had shattered that day, into thousands of selfish pieces. The one she had now, the one she had to put back together, had slivers missing in the strangest of places.

English, unlike Arabic, was not a poetic language. English had been cobbled together by too many unknown parents, too many unsure users. English lacked the single word that differentiated an attacking lion from one at rest. Nor did English have the capacity to relay the succinct, linguistic separation of a maternal uncle from a paternal one. English was not a thoughtful language.

Queens, Lulu-cat. We've crowned ourselves. We run ragged as we please. The only people who tell us what to do are each other.

She thought that irritation is sometimes the most honest way of expressing love.