“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”

“Laila came to believe that of all the hardships a person has to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”

“The shootings and explosions had lasted less than an hour, but they had frightened us badly, because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. They were foreign sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born.”

“They would make new lives for themselves—peaceful, solitary lives—and there the weight of all that they'd endured would lift from them, and they would be deserving of all the happiness and simple prosperity they would find.”

“there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life... you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a ather. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... there is no act more wretched than stealing.”

“Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.”

“it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”