“Despite my own personal views about that policy. It reinforces to me that I want to be part of the solution – and I want my work to be part of the solution – not part of the problem.”

We feel like there are way too many problems in the world, and there’s nothing we can do to solve them. We forget how to be compassionate and start to feel hopeless.

Now, I can’t help but feel inferior. When I’m out in public in Afghanistan, I feel inferior because I’m doing everything I can to stay hidden, silent.

Illiteracy does not impede the practice of democracy, as witnessed by the success of democracy in India despite the high illiteracy rate.

There is a lightening in our bones and wildfire in our spirits and we will find a way despite it all to survive and thrive.

Ghosts of the person you used to be are so proud of who you are, they live on inside you applauding you for living on despite your scars.

I once asked the most fabulous couple I know, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, how they kept things fresh despite having been married for almost seven months. ‘It’s a job, Al,’ Guy told me. ‘We work at it every day.’

Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist.

This democracy… The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition.

I thought that despite all the wounds and all the pains it could cause I wanted to dream again, and love someone with all my heart.

Despite all the dire predictions made in 2001, the Afghans have given the international community, its aid workers and soldiers a large window of opportunity to repair the damage done by 25 years of war.