Quotes From "When Ali Met Honour" By 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 and doing that every day? Ruth Ahmed

The fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fires of the iron. Ruth Ahmed

I had to be an adult, be a father without a son, so for one last moment I needed to be a son who needed his mother. Ruth Ahmed

Honour and I would have to create our world, live by our own rules. My family wasn't ready for her just yet. I didn't know if they ever would be. Ruth Ahmed

Look, my son, she is so beautiful, she has fair skin and green eyes and brown hair.'' She's English?' I asked cheekily, holding the cheap photo print with trepidation. Which unfortunate victim had they found for me to marry in what backwater, unbeknownst that my heart was not for trading? Honour would quote Shakespeare to make a point; for me, it was always Rumi.'La hawla wala kuwwat.. May God protect us from such misfortune.. you think I have lost my senses that I would marry you to a white girl?' My mum used the word gori as an insult and yet when she talked about Billo she said 'Look how gori she is.' Oh, Mum, the irony.' Well, you seem pretty obsessed with green eyes and skin colour, ' I mumbled.' She is gorgeous.' Mum went on ignoring me. 'Think how beautiful your children, my grandchildren, will be? They will have cats' eyes, just like Billo.'Honour has fair skin and green eyes too, and just think how beautiful your grandchildren will be if they're mixed race, I thought. I didn't say that to my mum, obviously. 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 capable of controlling her life and what happened to it. 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

There was a time when I was lucky enough to believe that 'There's this girl in Pakistan' would be the worst five words that Al ever said to me. Years later, they would be totally eclipsed by 'They can't find a heartbeat'. Ruth Ahmed

Honour looked so much like a child herself, confined to bed, a white nightgown, like one of those maudlin Victorian dolls. Her cheeks were red, like someone had painted them, but I knew it was from rubbing, wiping away her melancholy. 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

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 Honour and Ali. Ruth Ahmed

Five words that were the hardest words I would ever have to say, Five pillars of my faith that couldn't save him that day. Five rivers, the Panj Aab, that didn't flow through his veins. Five minutes that changed our world forever. Ruth Ahmed

Do you ever look up at the stars and try to contemplate the ends of the universe? 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

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

The drugs took over and she fell asleep then. Only her face was visible, the medical equipment acting as some hideous hijab for her. Ruth Ahmed

Ruby clapped her hands in glee and gave a comedic wiggle of her head, Bollywood style. I know the song now, can even sing it, but back then all I heard was the verdant Punjabi, the striking primary colours of the five rivers, the intricate history of a complex land. 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 paper, I surprised myself by how much I needed him. 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 steadied by guitar against the table, and steadied myself with it. And forgot every rule I had ever known. Ruth Ahmed

I wanted my eternity in carbon molecules, in being part of the trees, the sky, air itself 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

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

The sadness began later, in waves as crushing as the contractions had been, Ruth Ahmed

Her English was sweet, an effort for her, anachronistic and unpractised. Ruth Ahmed