Kabul is... a thousand tragedies per square mile.

A great deal remains to be done in Afghanistan and the jury is out as to whether the international community has the commitment and the patience to see the rebuilding process through.

I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time.

Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.

J’aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.

she held her breath, and in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second she didn’t breathe, God would grant her another day

[Flying kite with my friends] is one of the seminal memories of growing up for me.