Mariam

"Love is a waste of time for girls like me."

"Revenge is a bitter fruit."

"Some people are worth melting for."

"Endure, she tells herself. Endure and survive."

"She is the wife. She has a place in this home. She has a place in this world."

"Decent husbands didn't do these things. Decent men didn't."

"But grief is a queer thing. It comes and goes."

"We women are not creatures of this earth."

"She would not allow him to make her feel ashamed."

"The difference between you and me is that you think there is still time."

"This is how it is done. This is how one is supposed to live."

"She loved him too. God forgive her, she did."

"This was the condition of her life now."

"She would not let him break her."

"She was a harami. She had always been one."

"She would survive this. She had survived worse."

"He was her father but not her family."

"But she was not alone anymore."

"She would live for them now."

"It's a special thing, the way Afghans do it."

"I am the woman of this house, not you."

"Do you know what your father used to call you? His little flower."

"You're going to have to be hard. Strong. You'll have to think of yourself as a body protecting a candle from the wind."

"I am like a prisoner in this house, but without the dignity of being jailed."

"Women like us...we endure."

"Don't you dare hurt her anymore than you have already."

"I want to die as myself."

"You deserve better than this life."

"There is something honorable in choosing your own end."

"Suffering can crush you, or it can refine you. It's a matter of what you do with it."