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.

People learned to live with the most unimaginable things.

Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.

Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.

I entered the literary world, really, from outside. My entire background has been in sciences; I was a biology major in college, then went to medical school. I've never had any formal training in writing. So what I know about writing, I know from my own instincts, and whatever the narrative voice is in my own head.

There [in Afghanistan ] is a tremendous need for selter. So I am focusing most of the efforts of the foundation to building shelters for refugees in northern Afghanistan and we have already begun doing so.

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.