A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could—a look, a whisper, a moan—to salvage from perishing, to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn’t, in the end, save it all.

“Kiss Aziza for me,” she said. “Tell her she is the noor of my eyes and the sultan of my heart. Will you do that for me?”

I dare, I dare allow myself the hope that, after you read this, you will be more charitable to me than I ever was to you.