A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.

When I go to Afghanistan, I realize I've been spared, due to a random genetic lottery, by being born to people who had the means to get out. Every time I go to Afghanistan I am haunted by that.

Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.

The warlords took part in atrocities during the civil war in Afghanistan. They looted, they raped, they killed. They have become incredibly empowered and entrenched. They live in mansions, they have jobs in the government, and they're incredibly powerful. In Kabul, people don't want to speak about it too publicly, because these people are essentially like Tony Soprano.

All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.