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

And one more thing...You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.

I have this almost pathological fear of boring the reader.

She was the trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.

Inside Laila too a battle was being waged : guilt on one side, partnered with shame, and, on the other, the conviction that what she and Tariq had done was not sinful; that it had been natural, good, beautiful, even inevitable, spurred by the knowledge that they might never see each other again.

You changed the subject." "From what?" "The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy." "You know." "Know what?" "That I only have eyes for you.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.