Ruth Ahmed Quotes & Sayings

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

My father then presented Honour with a cheque,

"This is from our family for you, only you. Put it in a bank and if my son ever treats you badly, use this to leave the idiot," he said.

I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.

The haque mehr was traditionally given to the bride on the wedding day by the groom, it was an amount that would be hers for her lifetime to keep in case things went wrong and she needed to stand on her own two feet.

Dad had done his little trickery, and in his head and everyone else's, we had done all that was required from a nikah. — Ruth Ahmed

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

As the days dwindled towards the end of the week I knew only one thing: I couldn't return to our old life.

Haroon had taken Honour and Al with him, — Ruth Ahmed

I said I love you about a million times. Maybe not the actual words, but in every other way. — 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

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

Are you happy?' she asked.
'Honour... I've been happy since the moment I met you. — Ruth Ahmed

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

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

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

I steadied by guitar against the table, and steadied myself with it.

And forgot every rule I had ever known. — 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

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

You feel well, Ali? You have a very faraway look on your face, beta,' my dad said. 'Like you have left your heart behind.'

He fixed me with eyes as liquid black as mine and for a moment I felt exposed, like he could see right through me. That irrational childhood thought that he could read my mind maybe.

'What nonsense, his heart is here with his mother and his family. Tell him, Ali,' my mother said.

'Begum, this generation of boys and girls, you know how they are.' My dad never said my mother's name; she was always Begum, the generic term for 'wife'. — 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

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

He looked straight at me and winked. On anyone else it would have looked ridiculous - 1996 had moved beyond the language of winking at girls. — 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

I closed my eyes tightly and hoped that love was enough. — Ruth Ahmed

I would find tiny flowers left by somebody else, and I would know Honour had been to London. I only felt a bit sad she hadn't let me know and met up with me.

She didn't mention anything when I went to Kent at the weekends either.

It was what it was. — Ruth Ahmed

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 of the anti-Christ and that I was the devil incarnate. Or at least a minion.

It was my right hand, innit?

What I do remember though is my father, or Dad as we called him, abandoning the polite Abbu, telling me not to cry and to be patient because the fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fire 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

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

The fire within her, and her soul, were eclipsing my own. — 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 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

I couldn't help but think of Al's pre-ordained betrothal to Billo and of how hard the match-makers had worked to find the girl beautiful enough to match this extraordinary man - this extraordinary man of mine. — 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 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

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

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

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

People don't really change, they just adapt to circumstances. — Ruth Ahmed