Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.

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.

I feel like we [americans] are a unique nation in this world, in that we are able to implement great change in our society over a relatively short period of time. What takes centuries in Europe, we accomplish in a generation.

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

I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that you were ashamed of me.

People learned to live with the most unimaginable things.

I now know that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.