Songs for the Brokenhearted Quotes

“Good. You shouldn’t do anything impulsive when you’re grieving. This is not the time for big decisions.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“This is what happens when the shame from being made to feel “less than” weighs on you from childhood, unspoken, unnamed, there like gravity, like the air you breathe, when your culture is unrepresented or mocked when it is, your past erased, your history dismissed, left out of”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“The queen of demons, Lilith, was so powerful she could shape-shift into a sheep or a tiger and ambush nomads and little children by water sources. Lilith was known to attack new mothers and their babies who were left alone, inflicting them with diseases and driving them to madness. A new mother was never left unattended, and for the first forty days, women stayed by her bed, hung amulets in her room to repel Lilith and tended to her every need. And Umm al-Subyan, who seduced lone travelers and kidnapped children, lived in deep wells and her legs were the legs of a donkey. She walked around naked, and her breasts were so large she flung them over her shoulder. “If you see her, you say ‘Shema Israel’ and make a lot of noise. It scares her into leaving.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“anonymity and freedom I had gained in this foreign city.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“A psychologist on the news called it a collective orphanhood, which Yoni found odd.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“Normally, my parents wouldn’t be too thrilled with a Yemeni groom. You know, they think Yemenis are savages, uneducated, uncultured, but you are something else, Yaqub.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“dhimmi,”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel

“I heard myself gasp, felt my hand pressing over my mouth, as if to stop the sounds from coming. With my other hand, I clutched the edge of the counter to steady myself. I felt hollowed out, as though my insides had been sucked out of my body and the shell might crumble to the ground like a heap of empty clothes. In the cavity that gaped, something dropped and crashed.”
― Ayelet Tsabari, Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel