From Mama we learned what sort of people we should be, and we loved her as a confidante; but Papa's image was the mold of our dreams. (p52) - Dorit Rabinyan

I’ve always been a little bit suspicious, because sometimes this poetic sensibility in Israeli culture turns the conflict into something romantic. There is nothing romantic about occupation and occupiers and the occupied.

Darkness and the fact that the whole world is asleep brings a kind of quietness, and makes time softer, neutralizing the positive vibrations of humanity that abound in daylight. It is easier then to convince myself for several hours that the solitude I must have in order to write is inviolable.

The silence was very intense, like the hush that used to trouble her mind when she was the first to wake up on Saturday mornings. (p97)