Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.” “Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.

If my book generates any sort of dialogue among Afghans, then I think it will have done a service to the community.

A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history.

At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

I will follow you to the ends of the world.