“No one has to know. No one would. It would be her secret, one she would share with the mountains only. The question is whether it is a secret she can live with, and Parwana thinks she knows the answer. She has lived with secrets all her life.”

“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims…”

“I love the way she projects two facets: a visible persona and a subterranean one. She keeps her thoughts to herself; she seems to suggest that her secret, inner life is at least as significant as the appearance she gives.”

“You ask for her secret, though you might not know that's what you're about; and she can't tell you without learning it herself. And she wants not to learn that secret.”

“Finally we should note the basic assumption of the classical laboratory-namely, that nature is neither capricious nor secretive. If nature were capricious, she would tell one observer one thing and another observer a quite different thing… Also nature is not secretive, in the sense that she will not forever hide certain aspects of her being…”

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

“That's her secret, I suppose. Everything that happens to her she's proud of. She makes it special by it happening to her.”

“Your daughter says, 'Dad. Mom. I want to join the armed services.' You look at her beautiful face, her life flashes before your eyes, and you see a body bag. Now's the time to let her know the biggest military secret: She can join the military and be as safe-from-death as she would be at home. How? In the war in Iraq, not a single woman has been killed in the Air Force. Nor has a single woman been killed in the Marines. And only one has died in the Navy. Your only job is to keep her out of the Army.”

“Sometimes there would be someone else out there, someone she didn't know, but when they saw each other each would nod, as if making a secret pact. No question, no small talk.. agreed”

“Whether she won or lost, she would continue to wrestle with life. It would not be with her own life alone but with all of life. Something had finally been released within her. And there it was, the sea.”