the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion

Michael Bealmear is a philanthropist, and he has become interested in the issue of refugees, and he proposed that we do an event in his community, where we could dedicate an entire evening focused on the global refugee crisis, focused primarily on Afghanistan.

Literature and film have a way of lifting you from your own existence and transporting you to some foreign place and putting you in the shoes with an experience different than your own.

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

There [in Afghanistan ] is a tremendous need for selter. So I am focusing most of the efforts of the foundation to building shelters for refugees in northern Afghanistan and we have already begun doing so.

Equally important is the lack of cultivable land for farmers, a profound problem when you take into account that Afghanistan has always largely been an agricultural country, and that even before the wars destroyed lands and irrigation canals, only 5 per cent of the land was cultivable.

She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.