Other Words for Home Quotes

“There is an Arabic proverb that says:
She makes you feel
like a loaf of freshly baked bread.

It is said about
the nicest
kindest
people.
The type of people
who help you
rise.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Hoping,
I’m starting to think,
might be the bravest thing a person can do.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I wonder if it is exhausting
to be a tree.
To lose something,
year after year,
only to trust that it will
someday grow back" -Jude”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Just like I am no longer
a girl.
I am a Middle Eastern girl.
A Syrian girl.
A Muslim girl.

Americans love labels.
They help them know what to expect.
Sometimes, though,
I think labels stop them from
thinking.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Lucky. I am learning how to say it
over and over again in English.
I am learning how it tastes—
sweet with promise
and bitter with responsibility.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I cover my head not because I am ashamed forced or hiding. But because I am proud and want to seen as I am.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Too much sunshine makes a desert.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Sometimes talking
to Mama reminds me
of a feather duster brushing dirt
away from a mirror.
She doesn't give you anything new,
but she helps you better see
what is already there.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Mama says the word cake like it's just an ordinary food
which is strange since everyone knows that cakes are
made of magic.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I have learned that sometimes
the simplest things are
the hardest things to say.
That sometimes there is no word
for what you feel,
no word in any language.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Hoping, I’m starting to think, might be the bravest thing a person can do.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I want women like Aunt Michelle
to understand
that it is not only women who look like them
are free
who think
and care about other women.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Here, that food is Middle Eastern food. Baguettes are French food. Spaghetti is Italian food. Pizza is both American and Italian, depending on which restaurant you go to. Every food has a label. It is sorted and assigned. Just like I am no longer a girl. I am a Middle Eastern girl. A Syrian girl. A Muslim girl. Americans love labels. They help them know what to expect. Sometimes, though, I think labels stop them from thinking.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“You will belong here. . .You will make anywhere beautiful.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Back home, Mama always made us
laugh.
She wasn’t funny in the way Issa was.
Issa’s funny is like an elephant,
impossible to miss,
you know when he wants to make you
laugh.

But Mama’s funny is more like a cat,
slinking around,
hiding out in corners,
brushing up on you by surprise.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“That is something powerful enough to transcend oceans:
a mama's ability to say something
without actually saying it."
-Jude”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“We’re in a period of human history where empathy is needed more than ever. As the mother of two little girls, I’m constantly trying to teach them the idea that no one ever grows poor from giving. That sharing what you have does not make what you have worth any less. I guess that’s what this book is really about—the ever-growing need for generosity. And generosity is really just another word for love. So let’s work on giving more love to others as well as to ourselves.
(from Author's Note)”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“She tries to explain that it is like how we all expect it to be snowy in Antarctica but sunny and warm in Tahiti but if it snowed in Tahiti that would be news because it would be unexpected, but no one bats an eye when snow falls in frozen Antarctica. It takes me a while to process this, that what Layla is saying is that Americans think it’s normal for there to be violence in places where people like me are from, where people like me and people who look like me live. That they all see people like me and think violence sadness war. That’s not true, I say. Syria wasn’t always like how it is now, and it won’t always be like that either.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Proud of each other, proud of what we have created together. It is lovely to be a part of something that feels bigger than you.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Sometimes all you can do is hold on.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Sometimes I feel like you have to say things out loud
just to remind the universe
that you're still thinking about them."
-Jude”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I like thinking in numbers.
Numbers are easier than letters.
They have not changed on me.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“There is a long break.
I have learned Americans love to say you know and then
stop
talking.
They force you to fill in the hard parts,
the things they are not brave enough to say.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I am learning how to be
sad
and happy
at the same time"
-Jude”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“You should care about our country, too, he says. I do, I say, but what I mean is that I care about my brother and my baba and my mama and I just want to live in a country where we can all have dinner again without shouting about our president or rebels and revolution.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I think of the Arabic proverb that says: She cannot give what she does not have. I have never really understood what that means, but it seems wise and like I might be learning to better understand it now.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“It seems like the kind
of place where dreams
could grow and
live.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Those men are now fighting against the government's army, and the people who live in the town don't know whose side to choose. They only want the violence to stop. Nobody knows which side is right anymore.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“I want women...to understand that it is not only women who look like them who are free who think and care about other women. That it is possible for two things to look similar but be completely different.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“The first few times, I only walk by Ali Baba. I do not go inside. I am scared that I do not belong in a Middle Eastern restaurant in the middle of America. I am scared that the only place in Middle America that I belong is a Middle Eastern restaurant.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home