“ When I was a child I burnt the back of my right hand on a hot iron. I can't recall the pain, but there's an eye-shaped scar as testament to it. As a teenager I used to think it was the all seeing eye… Ruth Ahmed
“ Honour, in her modern self-confidence, had grown up never having to face actual raw, passionate, drop-down-dead-hostility. She didn't really understand what was going to happen, Ruth Ahmed
“ There is something so special in the early leaves drifting from the trees - as if we are all to be allowed a chance to peel, to refresh, to start again. Ruth Ahmed
“ I steadied by guitar against the table, and steadied myself with it.And forgot every rule I had ever known. Ruth Ahmed
“ The evening that Al and I met became the night that we met. By the time we fell asleep at daybreak we were different people Ruth Ahmed
“ I drank in his smell, I'd missed him so much more than I'd realised. Despite dreaming of him every night, besides my secret habit of writing Honour Hussain in curled scripts on every scrap piece of pa… Ruth Ahmed
“ It was things like that I remembered about Ruby, the incongruity, the struggle to find herself.No matter what she wore though she was always Ruby, always herself. Ruth Ahmed
“ 9/11 forced us to build another identity, to look deep and say who are we and what do we believe and is killing in the name of Islam part of that religion?No. No. No. Ruth Ahmed
“ I needed a fresh start, away from the memories that we had made for him, away from the home that didn't feel like my own anymore.Away from the people that had been ready to welcome him. Away from Hono… Ruth Ahmed
“ Do you have a girlfriend?''No,' I said quickly.Deny Honour again. Peter only denied Jesus three times. I must have denied Honour like three thousand times. Ruth Ahmed
“ My heart was in my mouth. I realised that I had no desire to know any more about her past. What was behind her made me feel sick, petrified. Only the future mattered now. Ruth Ahmed
“ Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely capa… Ruth Ahmed
“ They say some couples are joined in heaven, and on Earth they look for their partner soul to be with.I knew I had found mine in her. And who can fight heaven? Ruth Ahmed
“ The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up an… Ruth Ahmed
