“Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”

I’m gladly doing my own thing for the time being.

I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

I learned that the world didn’t see the inside of you, that it didn’t care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.

Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.

People say that eyes are windows to the soul.

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

A pathetic shadow, torn between her envy and thrill of being seen with Masomma, sharing in the attention as a weed would, lapping up water meant for the lily upstream.

Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.

They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.

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.

All good things in life are fragile and easily lost.

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.

I continue coupling a plate of silver with one of zinc, and always in the same order, and place between each of these couples a moistened disk. I continue to form a column. If the column contains about twenty of these couples of metal, it will be capable of giving to the fingers several small shocks.

The only thing that it is advisable to know in any language is the numerals; and even there, you can do a lot with the fingers.

My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

Tracing my fingertips over these open wounds that you carelessly open up, just to be amused; You pick at my sorrow while all I do is care for you.

Every honest miller has a golden thumb.

I’d rather be more of the hippie country chick – as in, instead of pointing a finger, just maybe saying, ‘We’re all screw-ups. We’re all in this kind of together. We’re all just figuring this out.’

I burned my own damn finger pokin’ someone else’s fire.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.