“But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.”

A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.

Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

True redemption is when guilt leads to good.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

But then it passed, as all things do.

When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.

In many parts of the world, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.

And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he’s everything you ever wanted.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

Women hide their imperfections instead of accepting them as an added charm.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.

When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.

You can be gorgeous at thirty, charmimg at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life.