I understand how difficult it is, putting your heart in someone else’s hands. But, if you don’t, how will you ever truly know a person?

My soul sees its equal in you.

You honestly expect me to breathe in a world without air?

Love is—a shade of what I feel.

Get up, Shahrzad al-Khayzuran. You kneel before no one. Least of all me.

You have a beautiful laugh. Like the promise of tomorrow.

Love is a force unto itself, sayyidi. For love, people consider the unthinkable...and often achieve the impossible. I would not sneer at its power.

There is no one I would rather see the sunrise with than you.

The more a person pushes others away, the clearer it becomes he is in need of love the most.

In what world did you think you could get away with this?" Jalal seethed. "To my cousin? To my family?" His gleaming hilt continued its punishing onslaught.

For his children, he would move mountains.

It's all right to have expectations in marriage. Just remember to keep them at the feet of Jesus, not at the feet of your spouse

Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.

Family's the most important thing.

I continue to be fascinated by the fact that feelings are not just the shady side of reason but that they help us to reach decisions as well.

How good we all are, in theory, to the old; and how in fact we wish them to wander off like old dogs, die without bothering us, and bury themselves.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

After all, what's good enough for Austen ought to be good enough for anyone.

There are no perfect answers. The earnest search is all we can expect.

How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.

An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad.