Exit West

by Mohsin Hamid

He had, as he often did, an amused expression in his bright eyes, not mocking, but as though he saw the humour in things, and this in turn amused her and made her warm to him.

His eyes were sober, flat, despite the drink, and not eyes that attracted the eyes of others.

The effect doors had on people altered as well. Rumours had begun to circulate of doors that could take you elsewhere, often to places far away, well removed from this death trap of a country. Some people claimed to know people who knew people who had been through such doors. A normal door, they said, could become a special door, and it could happen without warning, to any door at all. Most people thought these rumours to be nonsense, the superstitions of the feeble- minded. But most people began to gaze at their own doors a little differently nonetheless.

First good happening

at some level, that to love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.

Pacific

if they had but waited and watched their relationship would have flowered again, and so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.

We are all migrants through time.

These lines make these books cheap.

But as he said this he felt he was acting, or if not acting then so confused as to be incapable of gauging his own sincerity.