When you have lived as long as I have, the div replied, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same color.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. The word 'senseless' springs to mind, and Idris thwarts it. It's what people always say. A senseless act of violence. A senseless murder. As if you could commit sensible murder.

Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

Whether you do something or decide to do nothing, either way, you are making a moral choice. And I hope people make the right one.

The things that have always drawn me to the craft of writing is character, it's story, it's something that becomes like a pebble in my shoe, a voice that I just can't get rid of, and I've got to see it through.

When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.