Exit West

by Mohsin Hamid

“I can understand it,” she said. “Imagine if you lived here. And millions of people from all over the world suddenly arrived.” “Millions arrived in our country,” Saeed replied. “When there were wars nearby.” “That was different. Our country was poor. We didn’t feel we had as much to lose.”

to love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.

Every time a couple moves they begin, if their attention is still drawn to one another, to see each other differently, for personalities are not a single immutable color, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us.

it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time.