“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.”

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.

And every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.

And every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.

Hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

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.

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

Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms and no legs. The quick answer is that I have a choice. I can be angry about not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude.

You can attract more bees with a spoonful of sugar than a cupful of vinegar.

I was made for more than being stuck in a vicious cycle of defeat. I am not made to be a victim of my poor choices. I was made to be a victorious child of God.

We can believe in the future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in balance.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.

Mr. President, you were elected to lead. You chose to follow. And now it’s time for you to get out of the way.

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.