Behind You Is the Sea Quotes

“Yes.” He stared at her somberly. “In this house, we smile. So you have to smile at least once a day.” He burst into rumbling laughter at her surprised look. “Seeing you in our house is like waking up to a dream. Stay as long as you like, angel.” She thought about his words now, as she sipped Sits’s coffee. How they’d struck her as weirdly sentimental. So awkward and earnest. Her grandparents spoke in casual poetry, dropping phrases like “you’re blooming today” and “you bury me because I love you so much.” They always, always, always called her habibti and ya ayooni. My love. My eyes. The fact was that she wasn’t used to this, this awkwardly normal way of discussing intense emotions.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“You can live well, in this country, if you don’t set your hopes too high.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Her grandparents spoke in casual poetry, dropping phrases like “you’re blooming today” and “you bury me because I love you so much.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“When I get home that night, Mama is burning incense in the kitchen. The cast-iron bowl is on the counter, and she’s burning yansoon and lemon peels. Her soft white church veil covers her hair, and she’s muttering prayers in Arabic.
“He already took the test,” I tell her. “He’s sleeping in his bed.”
“We have to pray before, during, and after,” she says. “We surround him with prayers.”
She seems so convinced of what to do that I’m jealous of her security, her faith. My eyes fill with tears and my throat feels itchy, and I want to ask her if she’ll surround me too.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Food is love. You have to pass your love into the food,” Sits said solemnly, like she was reading from her Bible. “We lived during three wars. Lentils kept us from starving. Your Seedo and I—we love eating them. It reminds us of those days.” “Why would you want to remember? If they were such bad days.” “They were terrible,” Sits said, nodding. “But it’s good to remember. So you can look at your life now and say alhamdulilah.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Behind you is the sea. Before you, the enemy.” I glance at him then continue. “You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Reema thinks they’re fuckers but the job pays thirteen an hour so she smiles and nods. That’s how you survive when you need white people to help you—you just keep all the shit inside and collect your paycheck and thank God you can see the dentist once a year.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Your”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“How sad, she thought, to devote your life to your family, only to be shut away once you’d become inconvenient.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“Just move on. Don’t worry about it.” He talks about the girl he’s dating now, Ellen, who has a cat obsession and “doesn’t really have a job or anything, but she’s very demure and nice.” “Demure?” “Yeah. She’s demure. That’s what I said. And she has a friend who’s—” “No, thanks. I don’t need a demure girl. Get out of here with that shit.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“He startled awake, only to have Abu Sharif pat him on the shoulder and say soothingly in Arabic, “Sleep, brother. I know they gave you a hard time. Sleep. All is well.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“If all we are is past, who are these millions now gasping for air? —Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Ruin”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea

“The day he dies, Baba looks skinny and surprised. When he sucks in the last breath, his mouth opens in an O, like America has shocked him at last, and freezes there. It’s like he finally understood he was never meant to win here.”
― Susan Muaddi Darraj, Behind You Is the Sea