A Thousand Splendid Suns

"We are all women. We all suffer the same."

"A man's honor is worth more than his child."

"The flowers are long dead here. But I remember them."

"I was the color of his passion, he said. His desire."

"The boy is dead. Accept it."

"There is no honor in what I do. But there is necessity."

"Maybe women aren't meant to work like men do."

"A woman's first duty is to her family, her husband, her children."

"I am the most powerful man, in this household and beyond. So long as I am alive, no one sets terms but me."

"Freedom is not always found in grand gestures, but in small moments of resistance."

"Kindness is a choice, and sometimes it is the hardest choice to make."

"Education is the only way to break the chains of ignorance."

"Endurance is not the same as strength, but it requires its own kind of courage."

"Stories are the only medicine that works every time."

"Suffering can harden you, or it can open your heart."

"You can't put the fear of God into people's hearts if you don't first give them something to fear."

"If there is a God, he would forgive me for many things. But not for this."

"I am no longer that woman she remembers, the woman she had tried to save. I am not even the woman I pretended to be for Rasheed's sake."

"Wear your nose ring and your Western clothes if you want. Play your music. But do not do these things expecting to be spared the consequences of your choices."

"What is the worst that can happen to a woman but death?"

"Women like us, we endure."

"She is a burden. She will always be a burden."

"Do you know what the disease is, Laila? It is the disease of thinking you deserve something."

"I am this, and I am okay with that."

"It's not the end, Mariam. It's a beginning."

"Some people are not worth sacrificing for."

"A girl shouldn't get any ideas."

"Children are good judges of people."

"A woman's lies of kindness are better than the truth of cruelty."

"I was afraid of silence for a very long time."