All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.

Don't be afraid to tell the truth. It's better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies.

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

It's a funny thing... but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.

The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. The word 'senseless' springs to mind, and Idris thwarts it. It's what people always say. A senseless act of violence. A senseless murder. As if you could commit sensible murder.

It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. "Thank you but I don't want," Baba said. "I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money."...Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor.