Sparks Like Stars Quotes

“Grief is nothing but the far brink of love. Love is the sun; grief is the shadow it casts. Love is an opera; grief is its echo. You cannot have one without the other. But if you follow that grief, you will find your way back to love.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Let people serve you information, but never let them serve you your opinion.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“You know, we’re so damned afraid that talking about the ones we’ve lost will hurt us as much as losing them did. So we just stop talking about them. But that’s when we truly lose them.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“People are God’s cruelest creations. They’ll step on the smallest of backs to feel an inch taller.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“She would be brave because her father had once told her that the world lived within her. That her bones were made of mountains. That rivers coursed through her veins. That her heartbeat was the sound of a thousand pounding hooves. That her eyes glittered with the light of a starry sky. I am that girl, and this is my story.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“I had always been my father’s spirited girl, the child who had grown up in the halls of the palace. But the absence of my family made me reconsider who I was. If it hadn’t been for my father’s outstretched arms, perhaps I never would have dared to leap from the sofa cushions. If it hadn’t been for my mother’s applause, I might not have dared to dance in our living room. I only moved as boldly through the world as I had because I knew they would catch me, no matter how far I fell.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“In residency, I studied in a bookstore’s coffee shop, which was where a clutch of women gathered monthly for book club. They would set their library books and blueberry scones on the table. I started eavesdropping and realized that the books they read were just an excuse to talk about their own lives. Every character, every broken heart, every twist of fate inspired a story about an unruly mother-in-law, a philandering father, or the cousin who came out to his unforgiving parents. Sometimes it sounded more like a therapy session than a book discussion. I could never join a book club.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“People say ‘third world’ and think it just means countries without internet or paved roads,” I say. “But ‘third world’ is Cold War terminology. NATO countries are the first world and the Communist bloc is the second world. The third world was where those two clashed. So the mess in Afghanistan is actually a first and second world problem.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“My father had taught me to recognize and see through propaganda, to be suspicious of every statement that did not allow room for debate or question.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“untold histories live in shallow graves.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“An Afghan carpet, perhaps by design, conceals blood just as well as it conceals spilled tea.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Have you forgotten the words of Rumi? 'You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.' I had never truly given myself over to those words until this moment. The thought of the ocean inside me, with its infinite drops ran through me like a charge. My existence was integral to the universe.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“I'd watched my grandmother tend to her plants, pruning one stem at a time, and checking the soil's moisture with a finger. Like her plants, she bloomed with the sun and wouldn't even draw the curtains in her home. How could this dark hole be her path to heaven?”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“You need no one to confirm you. You are everything you believe yourself to be.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Let people serve you information, he had said mischievously, but never let them serve you your opinion.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Grief starts before anyone has gone missing.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“I looked for small signs that we were not facing the end of the world, holding on tight to my freshly spun theory that if the sun and moon kept their rituals, my world would remain intact.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Afghanistan’s secret weapon has always been her women. But, Boba, I’m just a girl. What a thing to say! As if a girl is made of lesser materials. Have you forgotten the words of Rumi? You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Afghanistan's secret weapon has always been her women.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“The wound is where the light enters you," Boba said softly.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Books are a tiny string connecting me to my parents. To be a reader is to be like them. To be around books and readers has brought me comfort too.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“I crossed scorched earth for the second time in my life, unsure if it would be my spirit or my knees to buckle first. Unsure which fire would shape my destiny and which would burn me. Unsure if what I was running toward was any better than what I was running from.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“While Neelab was mesmerized by the gold and the stones, I was stunned by the ring’s ability to outlive anyone who had worn it.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“She would be brave because her father had once told her that the world lived within her. That her bones were made of mountains. That rivers coursed through her veins. That her heartbeat was the sound of a thousand pounding hooves. That her eyes glittered with the light of a starry sky.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“I’ve never thought it was safe for me to bring a child into this world, not with all my sharp edges and dark corners. I accepted long ago that I would be an endling, the last of my kind.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“You’ve got the Russians and the Americans trying to be best buddies with the Afghan government. Two muscle-flexing superpowers playing tug-of-war, and they shredded this country to pieces.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Hmm. A year before the Soviets invaded. Why’d you leave then?” he asks. I tense at the realization that Clay will ask many questions because that is his nature, and because it has been my nature to avoid people like him.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“My best friend was the kind of daughter mothers wanted, one who would wear prim dresses and pearls. She could sit for hours without making a peep and didn’t go home with muddy knees, as I did.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“Our months were named after constellations, and soon it would be the month of Saur, or Taurus. I drew lines between stars and saw the bull’s swordlike horns piercing the sky. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled to picture the giant beast leaping down from the heavens and galloping on this land.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars

“It's an inside-out world, isn't it? Sometimes the world turns inside out and we are in the center and it's oh-so-dark and we think we will never, ever see the sun again.”
― Nadia Hashimi, Sparks Like Stars