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.

Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

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.

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

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

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.

I'm sure you have some cosmic rationale, but here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.

My earliest poems sing of the absolute necessity of allowing love to invade and pervade one's life. That can make the miracle happen in reality. Try it.

Maybe it needed to be broken. Sometimes things have to break before you can fix them.

What we give our attention to, grows.

It is clear that the way to heal society of its violence . . . and lack of love is to replace the pyramid of domination with the circle of equality and respect.

Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all.

This would be so much easier if they actually issued black hoods.

You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl." I roll my eyes. "Not claustrophobic people, Tris.

I think the forms of terrorism are becoming very diverse, amongst them cyber-terrorism, for example.