“On the other hand, constant hysteria did have one unintended political virtue. If every new event canceled out every other event, like some wacky news-cycle pyramid scheme, then you always survived another day.”
“For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts.”
“The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same.
‘And they lived happily ever after,’ Annemarie recited, whispering into the dark, completing the tale for her sister, who slept beside her, one thumb in her mouth.”
″..as the landscape changes from a modern built-up townscape, through to farm land, and finally back to the wilderness of the aborigines. The one thing that stays constant is a much loved old fig tree.”