Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

I give novels as gifts, and there is nothing I like to receive more as a gift.

There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.

But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl, Laila has already named her

People…shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if they’d already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn’t fair.

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.

I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.