The world isnt one way or another. Things can be changed very, very rapidly by someone with sufficient confidence, sufficient knowledge and sufficient authority.

Religions . . . seem to avoid mountain passes.

I'd like to come back to the West eventually. In the end abroad I am always a stranger, active politics in particular is not accessible to me and although people are generous, I can never be on the inside of a culture that relies a great deal on the private space and the family.

Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity.

Despite the dubious statistics … democracy is a thing of value for which we should be fighting.

I have never met a villager who does not want a vote.

I left things out - my motivations, my history, my emotional responses - because I am not good at understanding them or writing about them. I tried and it was generally boring and always unconvincing. Most importantly I wanted to try to place Afghans and Afghanistan in the foreground rather than my own character.