"I come from a culture of handwringers, vengeance seekers, people who name children after ancestors by rote -- first child, paternal grandfather, second child, maternal, and on and on and on."

"Malin had been born and bred in an upper-class family. Was that the cause of his dissillusionment and bitterness with that way of life? The way he could have peace of mind therefore, was by detaching himself from that way of life and battling against it. Would Prince Siddharta have renounced the world if he had been born into poverty?"

"A parentologist is a person who writes a book about parenting that is very clear about answers to, 'How am I supposed to raise my child?' Some of these well-intentioned people may be a bit too sure-footed on the sometimes slippery slope of parenting."

"Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made."

"When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it."

"The entertainment industry isn't a line of work encouraged in the Persian culture. When I called my dad to say I wanted to quit medicine, there was about three minutes of silence. I'm not sure he knew what to do with himself!"

"Every second, every day, every year, we fail to address demand for reproductive health and family planning services. Lives are lost, and girls' opportunities to thrive and contribute to their country's development shrink. These are real people."

"My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late -- our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten."