I found a sad little fairy Beneath the shade of a paper tree. I know a sad little fairy Who was blown away by the wind one night.

Air grew heavy, damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks.

Human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries.

Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.

In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

I was overwhelmed with the kindness of people [in Afghanistan] and found that they had managed to retain their dignity, their pride, and their hospitality under unspeakably bleak conditions.

When I went to Afghanistan in 2003, I walked into a war zone. Entire neighborhoods had been demolished. There were an overwhelming number of widows and orphans and people who had been physically and emotionally damaged; every 10-year-old kid on the street knew how to dismantle a Kalashnikov in under a minute. I would flip through math textbooks intended for third grade, fourth grade, and they would include word problems such as, "If you have 100 grenades and 20 mujahideen, how many grenades per mujahideen do you get?" War has infiltrated every facet of life.