People in the countryside carry a sense of dignity. They wear it, don't they? Like a badge? I'm being genuine.

Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.

I wanted to write about Afghanistan before the Soviet war because that is largely a forgotten period in modern Afghan history.

The short of it is, as an aspiring writer, there is nothing as damaging to your credibility as saying that you don't like to read.

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.

She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies, and sometimes not.

True redemption is...when guilt leads to good.