Lyse Doucet > Quotes

“History always moves in a multitude of singular stories that carry far bigger truths.”
― Lyse Doucet, The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan

“Thank god, I said to myself, that the sun is not someone's property, otherwise I'd have to pay rent for that as well.”
― Lyse Doucet, My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women

“But words like the World Trade Center – even New York – didn’t mean much to most Afghans. The Twin Towers were an unfathomable 110 storeys high. The most head-turning sky-scraper in the city was the eighteen-storey Kabul Tower, built in the days of the king. It was even called Hajhda Manzila, ‘Eighteen-Storey’, in recognition of its unique scale. Even the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which the Taliban took days to destroy with all their firepower, were far shorter than New York’s tallest towers. Only the Hindu Kush soared higher, its peaks poking through the clouds.”
― Lyse Doucet, The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan