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.

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

If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thous didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting.

America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.

He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

I see America has infused you with the optimism that has made her so great

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.