Probably the single most commen response I get from my readesr, be it through e-mails or letters, is that they did not know much, or at times, they're quite frank, they didn't care much about Afghanistan. But they pay attention more after reading these novels, and at times it has triggered this humaitarian spirt: some have donated money or at time times, people have joined humatiarian organizations that work in Afghanistan.

We stayed huddled that way until the early hours of the morning. The shootings and explosions had lasted less than an hour, but they had frightened us badly, because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. They were foreign sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born.

There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.

and yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had love and been loved back. she was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. a mother. a person of consequence at last.

There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.

At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.

I experienced Kabul with my brother the way Amir and Hassan do: long school days in the summer, kite fighting in the winter time, westerns with John Wayne at Cinema Park, big parties at our house in Wazir Akbar Khan, picnics in Paghman.