But if you have a book that needs urgent reading,' she said, 'then Hakim is your man.

You have these crops of poppies that supply something like 90% of the heroin sold in Europe and actually represents more than half of the Afghanistan's GDP.

It's tremendous what can happen when suddenly you make an emotional connection.

I'm a pretty uncomplicated person. I live a very simple life with my family and I enjoy very ordinary things.

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir

You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.

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.