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

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

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

She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.

The finger cut, to save the hand.

Give sustenance, Allah. Give sustenance to me.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.