“All good things in life are fragile and easily lost.”

What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

Some stories don’t need telling.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.

She said, ‘I’m so afraid.’ And I said, ‘why?,’ and she said, ‘Because I’m so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.’ I asked her why and she said, ‘They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.

A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.

And that, is the story of our country, one invasion after another Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we’re like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.

I finally had what I’d wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, i felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.

For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.

I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.

Afghanistan has always been sort of a fractured nation, very tribal, where the countryside and the distant provinces have been run by custom, by tribal law and by tribal leaders rather than edicts from the central government in Kabul.

At last, she makes her choice. She turns around, drops her head, and walks toward a horizon she cannot see. After that, she does not look back anymore. She knows that if she does, she will weaken.

The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.

Silence is terrible and painful only to those who have said all and have nothing more to speak of; but to those who never had anything to say— to them silence is simple and easy.

It’s not easy to be a martyr in the field of race relations.

It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.

I hope you get through the battles you don’t tell anyone. Even if its easier said than done, I hope your heart always chooses to be kind.

Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.

Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.

Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.