A Thousand Splendid Suns

I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.

You changed the subject."
"From what?"
"The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy."
"You know."
"Know what?"
"That I only have eyes for you.

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.

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

A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.

A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated...