There is only what you do and what you don’t do

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion.

And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.

You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you just have to see and feel.

People mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.

They say, find a purpose in 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. And now that I had fulfilled mine, I felt aimless and adrift

If I’ve learned anything in Kabul, it is that human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries. But I find comfort in it, in the idea of a pattern, of a narrative of my life taking shape, like a photograph in a darkroom, a story that slowly emerges and affirms the good I have always wanted to see in myself.

Kažu pronađi svrhu u životu i ostvari je. Ali katkad, tek nakon što ga proživiš, uvidiš da je život imao svrhu, lako moguće onu o kojoj nisi nikad ni razmišljao.

Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980's: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.