A Thousand Splendid Suns

"Laila did not speak to him unless necessary."

"She did not know who she was anymore."

"A man's honor is his name."

"She had learned to read during all the years she'd been locked away."

"I am not frightened anymore."

"War doesn't end when you lay down your weapons. It ends in here."

"The world does not have a place for people like us."

"One day she would have a son, and when she did, she would have to surrender him too."

"Suffering can't be reinvented."

"There is no God but God."

"She wondered if this was what it meant to be a wife."

"Women like Nana were not supposed to know such things."

"It was a girl, Rasheed said, as though it had been Laila's fault."

"She had no choice now but to accept."

"I wish I could be like that, bold and sure of myself."

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

"Mariam had never been to school, so she was illiterate."

"But she knew she would have to do the same thing next week, and the week after that, for the rest of her life."

"You'll see. One day you'll wake up and realize what you've lost."

"I had not understood that I was sad until I was happy."

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

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

"I am the color of spinach, the color of old things."