The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck.

I think he loved us equally, but differently.

Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.

I think the changes that have happened, there have been come positive, but by and large, you have to say the changes have been negative. The situation has reached a fairly critical stage in Afghanistan.

If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar.

I wished I could be alone in my room, with my books, away from these people.

You are never alone in Afghanistan. You are always in the company of others, usually family. You don't understand yourself really as an individual, you understand yourself as part of something bigger than yourself. Family is so central to your identity, to how you make sense of your world, it is very dramatic, and therefore an amazing source of storytelling, a source of fiction for me.