My father and I did work for a while at the flea market and there really are rows of Afghans working there, some of whom I am related to.

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

A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.

If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.

Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

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.

Whether you do something or decide to do nothing, either way, you are making a moral choice. And I hope people make the right one.