"The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself"

"Children belive that everything bad that happens is somehow their fault, and in this I was no exception; but they also believe in happy endings, despite all evidence to the contrary, and I was no exception in that either"

"Tell me where it hurts", she'd say. "Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where." But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything

I'll rewrite history for you. How's that?

My heart lurched: yearning ran through me like a cramp

But the old wound has split open, the invisible blood pours forth. Soon I'll be emptied

I wanted things to be highly coloured, simple in outline, without ambiguity, which is what most children want when it comes to the stories of their parents. They want a postcard.

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence

De murer Palestinerne inne, sa han, det vil si ute sa han, ikke bare av sikkerhetshensyn, men for å slippe å se dem og kjenne seg igjen i dem, for ikke å bli minnet på sin egen ydmykende offerhistorie og fordi they cannot stand them because of what they have done and still do to them

Lille Oslo i den altfor store verdenen, lille jorda i det altfor store universet, der vi alle er ubetydelige, og samtidig alt som er, alt vi noensinne har kjent bor inne i oss, alt som noensinne skal finnes bor inne i oss, i cellene våre og i kroppene våre, hver eneste meningsløse dag er den eneste meningsfulle vi har

Vi var barn og tenåringer sammen en gang. Vi gjorde alt sammen, helt til vi ikke gjorde noe sammen lenger. Det føltes som det skjedde over natta, men det skjedde sakte, så sakte, som tida går, måneder skifter navn og dagene kommer og går og man ser hverandre hver dag, så noen ganger i uka, så et par ganger i året, så ikke i det hele tatt

"Or okay, maybe it was inaccurate to suggest that he didn't feel anything, but whatever it was glimmered behind layers of numbness, like the sensations of dental work"

"Everything her eyes, hands or lips touched could explode at any moment into a reminder.

"It had been painful, being two people. There as a civil war inside her"

[...] an artist is someone who combines a desperate need to be understood with the fiercest love of privacy"

The sudden prospect of seeing it again, the city, his city, set his heart strugglig like an animal in a too-small cage.

"[...] filling his ribcage with feelings oddly shaped and too large to fit inside"

"[...] he could feel the memory coming on like a migraine: trigger, then aura, then pain"

"Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I’ve been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with language I can’t afford to forget.

They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body? The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies, the Gulf of Aden bloated, the city of Rome with no jacket. I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water. I thought the sea was safer than the land. I want to make love but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you’re young and asleep. Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate. I’m the colour of hot sun on my face, my mother’s remains were never buried. I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck, I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body."