"Yaicha is named after a songby some group from the last century called thePousette-Dart Band.Something about a girl, a candle in the falling rain shining amidst the pain.I kind of surprise myselfwhen I can picture Yaicha as that candle.My father named Yaicha after the 'haunting melody.'I wonder if he ever listenedto the lyrics."

"When I look at my daughter, who's 24, she is much more confident than I ever was and her expectations are higher. But I worry that there is a backlash brewing against progress on equality."

"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."

"I have lost you, my brotherAnd your death has ended The spring seasonOf my happiness, our house is buried with youAnd buried the laughter that you taught me.There are no thoughts of love nor of poemsIn my head Since you died."

"My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories - not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father's generation. It's a kind of inheritance, the memory of it."

"If you love your dad, it’s tough when he dies. If you don’t like your dad, it’s tough when he dies. Because you lose that guy. Whatever you didn’t get, you miss. And what you did get, you miss."

"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!"

"Who were these people? Where was all this joy, and where does joy go when it leaves your family? Does it go into someone else's family, soak into the earth, or does it dissolve away like your breath in the winter? And if it doesn't leave like this, then why isn't there any left for me?"