Now, especially in public places, you always have that unease. When the children were cast, if I thought that they might be victims of violence because of participating in this movie, we would have chosen children from outside this country.

In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

it is a heartBreaking sound, Amir Jan, the Wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you Never hear it.

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.

Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you.

Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

At least, it is encouraging to me that President [Barack] Obama has put Afghanistan front and center in this broader so-called War on terror, and that he is taking a different approach to Afghanistan.