Kiran Hafeez

“Laila watches Mariam glue strands of yarn onto her doll's head. In a few years, this little girl will be a woman who will make small demands on life, who will never burden others, who will never let on that she too had sorrows, disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed. A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her. Already Laila sees something behind this young girl's eyes, something deep in her core, that neither Rasheed nor the Taliban will be able to break. something as hard and unyielding as a block of limestone. Something that, in the end, will be her undoing and Laila's salvation.
The little girl looks up. Puts the doll down. Smiles.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“What is next to ecstasy?
Pain.
What is next to pain?
Nothingness.
What is next to nothingness?
Hell.”
― Umera Ahmed

“Do what you do only for God's sake, start for God's sake, work for God's sake, and act within the sphere of God's good approval.”
― Said Nursi

“And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she would die this way. Now so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of legitimate beginnings.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns