“I think our job as parents is to give our kids roots to grow and wings to fly.Deborah Norville”

“Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed. We use it for a while, then pass it on.Everything.We borrow the sun that shines on us today from the people on the other side of the world while they borrow the moon from us. Then we give it back. We can't keep the sun, no matter how afraid we are of the dark.”

“I don't have to bitch, because Bunny's doing enough for all of us. Clearly Miss Homemaker doesn't find hiking as easy as pie, because she's cursing in time to our footsteps, and instead of hearing left, left, I left my wife and forty-eight kids home in the kitchen in starving' condition with nothing but gingerbread left, left I hear shit, shit, these bugs are like shit, shit. . . .”

“There is nothing the Americans can do. Their presence here only fuels the fire of the Taliban hatred. It's as if everybody thinks that Afghans are theirs for the taking. It's as if we're not real people with hearts and minds of our own. It's as if we're animals who need humans to shape us. By Muhammad, I know that if more of us had some education and could read, we would be a mighty force. We could rule our own lives.”

“It is said that our destiny is set, predetermined before conception. But I myself, have never been a believer…”

“There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.”

“It's hard to stay committed when our heart isn't in it.”