“A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”

“Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.”

“But Laila has decided that she will not be crippled by resentment. Mariam wouldn’t want it that way. ‘What’s the sense?’ she would say with a smile both innocent and wise. ‘What good is it, Laila jo?’ And so Laila has resigned herself to moving on. For her own sake, for Tariq’s, for her children’s. And for Mariam, who still visits Laila in her dreams, who is never more than a breath or two below her consciousness. Laila has moved on. Because in the end she knows that’s all she can do. That and hope.”

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”

“A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything.”

“Hassan returned the smile. Except his didn’t look forced. And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too”

“God has granted you a special talent. It's now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.”