‎I know you're still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated Laila. No chance.

Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

You don't order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them 'sister' the next.

All good things in life are fragile and easily lost

yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways and move them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism

I did see [in Afghanistan] plenty that reminded me of my childhood. I recognised my old neighbourhood, saw my old school, streets where I had played with my brother and cousins.