At the time we are focusing our efforts primarily on building shelters for refugees. Homelessness in Afghanistan is a huge problem.

Every woman needed a husband, even if he did silence the song in her.

He had the blue kite in his hands; that was the first thing I saw. And I can't lie now and say my eyes didn't scan it for any rips.

I grew up with some kind of storytelling instinct, and when I write, my default setting is to find a story and then to tell it. It's the only way I know how to write.

One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.

When you have lived as long as I have, the div replied, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same color.

For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture.