Writing for me is largely about rewriting.

you say you have no courage, but i see it in you. what you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. for that, i honor you.

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

I'm a pretty uncomplicated person. I live a very simple life with my family and I enjoy very ordinary things.

If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate ---sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school.

Afghanistan is a rural nation, where 85 percent of people live in the countryside. And out there it's very, very conservative, very tribal - almost medieval.

She passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and it accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion.