“History is the third parent.”

“Only twenty - nine years in the entire human history had been without warfare, and now here he was too, travelling between the episodes of a rapacious civil war.”

“Even the air of this country has a story to tell about warfare. It is possible here to lift a piece of bread from a plate and following it back to its origins, collect a dozen stories concerning war-how it affected the hand that pulled it out of the oven, the hand that kneaded the dough, how war impinged upon the field where wheat was grown.”

“Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery. But no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave.”

“How keen everyone is to make this world their home forgetting its impermanence. It's like trying to see and name constellations in a fireworks display.”

“The bullet that has hit us Muslims today left the gun centuries ago when we let the clergy decide that knowledge and education were not important.”

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.”