She is furious with herself for her own stupidity. Opening herself up like this, voluntarily, to a lifetime of worry and anguish. It was madness. Sheer lunacy. A spectacularly foolish and baseless faith, against enormous odds, that a world you do not control will not take from you the one thing you cannot bear to lose. Faith that the world will not destroy you.

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.

The [George W.] Bush administration tripled its aid package to Afghanistan. [Hamid] Karzai finally (and courageously) announced that warlords will be forbidden from holding office in the future government. And finally, NATO agreed to expand the peacekeeping forces to troubled areas outside of Kabul.

He had the blue kite in his hands; that was the first thing I saw. And I can't lie now and say my eyes didn't scan it for any rips.

Dr. Bashiri, if I ever want to put a curse in someone, I say, 'May God give you a restaurant.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.