For many people in the west, Afghanistan is synonymous with the Soviet war and the Taliban. I wanted to remind people that Afghans had managed to live in peaceful anonymity for decades, that the history of the Afghans in the twentieth century has been largely pacific and harmonious.

Air grew heavy, damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks.

My wife is my in-home editor and reads everything I write.

There is a way to be good again.

I was overwhelmed with the kindness of people [in Afghanistan] and found that they had managed to retain their dignity, their pride, and their hospitality under unspeakably bleak conditions.

All good things in life are fragile and easily lost

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.