The Night Diary Quotes

“It feels scary to talk, because once the words are out, you can’t put them back in. But if you write words and they don’t come out the way you want them to, you can erase them and start over.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“When you divide people, they take sides.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Sometimes the world as you know it just decides to become something else.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“You can't split us. You can't split love.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“He misses the time he had with you. I miss the time I didn’t have.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I needed all the feelings to stop boiling like a pot of dal and be cool enough for me to taste them.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I had never wondered about being safe before. I just thought I was.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“It's just that some people are better at being than others”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Sometimes the sadness about you being gone comes and finds me after not being there for a while. Something makes me think about you and then I get sad for a long time.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Everybody thinks they are protecting and defending their people. But we are all people, right?" -Papa”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Secretly, I want the box more than the jewelry. I want it to be all mine and never have to give it back. I could find any old thing—a pebble, a leaf, a pistachio shell—and put it in the box. Like magic, these things would get to be special at least for a day.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Making food always brings people together" -Kazi”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Do we have to take a side?” I asked. “I think it’s safer. That way you know who your enemy is,” Amil said, and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “But if we don’t take a side, then we don’t have any enemies.” “I don’t think it works that way,” Amil said.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I used to think of people by their names and what they looked like, or what they did. Sahil sells pakoras on the corner. Now I look at him and think Sikh. My teacher, Sir Habib, is now my Muslim teacher. My friend Sabeen is happy and talks a lot. Now she’s my Muslim friend. Papa’s friend, Dr. Ahmed, is now a Muslim doctor. I think of everyone I know and try to remember if they are Hindu or Muslim or Sikh and who has to go and who can stay.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Amil is only being all he knows how to be. But I guess Papa is, too. I guess we all are. It’s just that some people are better at being than others.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“It feels like we’re really in a story now. I’ve heard about stories like these, about people who flee their homes in a war with nothing but the clothes and food on their backs. Now that’s who we are, even though there’s not a war here, but it’s like a war. It seems almost like a made-up war.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“It’s one thing to understand facts and another thing to understand why those facts are facts.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“All that suffering, all that death, for nothing. I will never understand, as long as I live, how a country could change overnight from a line drawn.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I'm losing a part of you all over again...”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I've always been afraid that if I screamed, I might break into million of pieces.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I could tell he was trying to shake off his feelings. He didn't like to be angry. I loved that about him, that he really wanted to be happy.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“...if you were here, would you have sat next to me and held me? Would you have loved me more than all of them?”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Were we just at the mercy of leaders who couldn't agree?”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“If someone comes into the hospital, I treat them no matter who they are or what religion they are. When I open a body up, I see the blood, the muscles, the bones, all the same in every person, like Gandhiji says" -Papa”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“After I finish, it’s like the part of me that can’t fall asleep, the part that’s staring at the cracks on the ceiling, wondering and worrying, is emptied in the diary for the night. During the day I fill back up and the pages wait. I like to think you’re holding my thoughts for me until I can tend to them again.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I didn’t feel like talking at all today. Watching the boys made me want to be quiet, so I could think about them. I was afraid each word I might utter would somehow fade the memory.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“I don’t ask many questions, so it would be fairer if he answered the few I ask. He should be more appreciative. I could be like Amil and ask a question every five seconds, but he doesn’t answer many of those either.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“It took a lot of energy to ask that question. I wished he had answered it. I don’t know when I’ll be able to ask it again.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Kazi tells me stories about you once in a while. I hardly ask him to tell me about you, though, because I’m afraid that the stories might run out. I want to save them, like a treat.”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary

“Cakes and bows must be nice, but is anything better than a perfect tomato?”
― Veera Hiranandani, The Night Diary