You say you felt a presence, but I only sensed an absence. A vague pain without a source. I was like a patient who cannot tell the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.

Educate yourself, learn about what refugees face when they don't have homes, after they have lost everything.

The finger cut, to save the hand.

Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.

She said, 'I'm so afraid.' And I said, 'why?,' and she said, 'Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, 'They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.

Even after The Kite Runner was published I continued to practice for another eighteen months. But I had always had a love of writing and a compulsion to do it.

You've always been a tourist here. You just didn't know it.