Quotes from book

And the Mountains Echoed

“They say, Find a purpose in your 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.”

“If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, [and] to all rooms inside.”

“They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under.”

“Kabul is… a thousand tragedies per square mile.”

“You say their stories, it is gift they give you.”

“At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.”

“The rope that pulls you from the flood can become a noose around your neck.”

“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.”

“i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.”

“At last, she makes her choice. She turns around, drops her head, and walks toward a horizon she cannot see. After that, she does not look back anymore. She knows that if she does, she will weaken.”

“I now know that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.”

“I found a sad little fairy
Beneath the shade of a paper tree.
I know a sad little fairy
Who was blown away by the wind one night.”

“Gone.
Vanished.
Nothing left.
Nothing said.”

“The finger cut, to save the hand.”

“She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than i did the sun for shining on me.”

“In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them.”

“If you were the poor, suffering was your currency.”

“All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.”

“All good things in life are fragile and easily lost”