Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.

I came to the US as an immigrant and I recall vividly those first few years in California, the brief time we spent on welfare, and the difficult task of assimilating into a new culture.

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.

it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

[Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns] is not just unique to books, but films and music.

You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.

But if you have a book that needs urgent reading,' she said, 'then Hakim is your man.