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.

The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction.

[Barack Obama] is sending more troops [to Afghanistan], but they have also realized that we are not going to win that war through guns and tanks. We have to engage the neighbors, and it is good that there is a non-military strategy in addition to a military strategy. It is, at least, encouraging. Whether it will work or not, the jury is still put.

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.

i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.

True redemption is...when guilt leads to good.