The Watermelon Boys Quotes

“History would tell of a war, fought honorably and equally by the civilized against the savage. The savage would be lucky if he were mentioned at all. It would skip the parts where the air forces shot at unarmed women and children, of entire villages burned in displays of power, or - worse still - it wouldn't skip it, and nobody would notice anyway.”
― Ruqaya Izzidien, The Watermelon Boys

“The present is an arrogant time in which to live, always has been. Humans of the present look back at their people, land, and history, and whisper to themselves with glee, We are not them. But we were always them. We are our history; we are the crimes of our ancestors. And we wait, mouths agape, to hear tales of hope, as though good could triumph in such a world.”
― Ruqaya Izzidien, The Watermelon Boys

“And the Tigris sobbed into his ears as it mourned the splashes of laughter and careless small ankles and coracles bursting with watermelons that it would never again witness in all of history.”
― Ruqaya Izzidien, The Watermelon Boys

“The kind of unrestrained sorrow that only people of the twin-rivered land had the sincerity to reveal.”
― Ruqaya Izzidien, The Watermelon Boys

“The sun was close to that lowest point where it would soon burst on the spikes of the minareted horizon, and in these last few moments, its light pink glow would cast long shadows, even beneath the smallest child.”
― Ruqaya Izzidien, The Watermelon Boys