Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

You are never alone in Afghanistan. You are always in the company of others, usually family. You don't understand yourself really as an individual, you understand yourself as part of something bigger than yourself. Family is so central to your identity, to how you make sense of your world, it is very dramatic, and therefore an amazing source of storytelling, a source of fiction for me.

There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.

A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated.