There's nothing, absolutely nothing, more important than your life. And your life isn't more important than other people's lives.

Of course, I'm aware of the animosities destroying brain cells on both sides, and I know all about the obstinacy of the warring parties, their refusal to reach an agreement, their devotion to their own murderous hatred.

I was depressed. I knew I was lost, but I had no idea how to find myself again. It was as though I was a different person, an infuriating, disappointing yet indispensable person whose body was my only home.

Culture is always about politics in the end.

You can know all there is to know about life and mankind, but what do you really know about yourself?

It seems that the whole world is beginning to decay, and that its putrefaction has chosen to spread outward from here, from the land of the Pashtuns, where desertification proceeds at a steady, implacable crawl even in the consciences and intellects of men.

Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.