“And one more thing...You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.”

“Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.”

“It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.”

“In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr.Nawaz, and suddenly I want to be away from this man, because I don't think I can bear what he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again: La illaha ila Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah.They had to transfuse several units of red cells─How will I tell Soraya?Twice, they had to revive him─I will do namaz, I will do zakat. They would have lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong─ I will fast.He is alive.”

“If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.”

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

“You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.”