Discovering Something New Every Day was an Al-Amri family motto. Aref's father said people started playing this game the day they were born. (p7) - Naomi Shihab Nye

details have always been the doorway by which we approach and apprehend the larger things of the world, the larger truths, whatever they might be.

"You will need to be brave. There are hard days coming. There are hard words waiting in people’s mouths to be spoken. There are walls. You can’t break them. Just find doors in them." (p258)

Some people carried anger around for years, in a secret box inside their bodies, and it grew tighter like a hardening knot. The problem with it getting tighter and smaller was that the people did, too, hiding it...But other people responded differently. They let their anger grow so large it ate them up--even their voices and laughter. And still they couldn't get rid of it. They forgot where it had come from. They tried to shake the anger loose, but no one liked them by now. (p89)