The Broken Circle Quotes

“Their actions were motivated by hate. Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can’t love God. It is impossible.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Once in the past, I asked a bird “In what way do you fly in this gravity of wickedness?” Shmoon is most delighted e responded, “Love lifts my wings.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“If we change our mind, we change our life,” I said, repeating something that he had recited to us many times.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“I had witnessed up close how rude and violent men were determined to force their version of love and safety on others using guns and blood.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“These people are my good friends, and this is what friends do—we take care of one another when we are in need.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Once in the past, I asked a bird “In what way do you fly in this gravity of wickedness?” She responded, “Love lifts my wings.” —Hafiz”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“All throughout the world, love speaks to us, what it means to cherish and be kind and to respect each other. If we miss the message, we will get lost. We will lose out on what’s important.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Pray Somewhere in this world— Something good will happen.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can't love God. It is impossible.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“He shook his head. “This situation, I know, is difficult to understand, but I believe it is as the poet says it is: ‘This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.’” “God means for us to be here, suffering?” “He does not mean for people to do terrible things. Soldiers kill and murder and do harm because they are evil. But God knows we have come to this place, that we have things to learn so we can grow as human beings, as spiritual creatures. It’s not enough to have all the things you wish for to make us comfortable. We must have much more.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“If you look for love and hope in this world, you will find it.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“If you send us back, they will put us in jail. They will beat us like they’ve done to so many others, they will kill us!” He shook his head. “That is none of my concern. You can’t come here illegally and expect to be greeted with open arms.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“One cannot exist with a heart torn in half between two loves, two decisions, or two worlds, because it will eventually break in two.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“My children are survivors. One thing I can tell you, no one can stop them. If the whole world fell apart, there would be four survivors—my children. I’ll give up before they do.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Always a silver lining in Allah’s mysterious ways.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“I understood how hard it would be to start a new life, how we would have to make sacrifices for one another to prosper in a new land with a new language, and I envisioned the things we could achieve if we worked hard, trusted and looked out for one another, and kept moving forward. That was all in my future, and my past had prepared me.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“We thought of America as a paradise, a place with freedom and safety to be yourself.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“They learned about love from a distance. This is the truest love of all, when two people must wait and build up great ideas about each other until the passion becomes so unbearable and deeply rooted that they must have each other. That is how love becomes the most desirable and lasting.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“One of Padar’s proverbs came to mind: “One cannot exist with a heart torn in half between two loves, two decisions, or two worlds, because it will eventually break in two.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“I believed my pleasant life would last forever. I now knew the error of that thinking. Life could change in an instant.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“This was very troubling. It made me think of Mina’s father, a supposed Muslim, selling his own daughter to another man to become a wife and slave. But Islam teaches that a man must not touch a woman without her consent. Mina didn’t consent to be a wife. None of this made any sense to me, the more I thought about it. I talked to Shakila, and she told me that rape and murder are sins in Islam. I understood that well, but still everything I’d seen with my own eyes, the way Mina was treated, filled me with doubts. The way Islam was practiced in the countryside was very different than my father’s religion.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“This is a very difficult part of the journey, so we must stay together,” he told us as we moved quickly down the dirt road. We were heading deeper into the countryside. He explained that we would have to go around Jalalabad, and the shortest way was through a large marijuana field. It was well guarded on all sides by the farmers, and he had received special permission for us to walk through it. “I paid them to let us pass,” he said. But he said we must be quiet and stay together and concentrate, or the unpleasant smell of the tall plants would overcome us. I’d never smelled anything so rotten. The field was so vast and dense with plants that the concentrated aroma of the marijuana plants had turned into a putrid stench that burrowed into our noses and seeped down into our stomachs. It was like walking through a garbage dump where animal carcasses and waste food had been left to rot, producing one large overwhelming odor of death. We gagged every step. I wanted to throw up, but Masood prodded us to keep moving. We didn’t dare stop, worried that the stench would overwhelm us to the point we would be unable to continue. He carried a lantern and held it out in front of us and warned us to watch where we stepped. The field went on for miles. I figured this because we had to walk all night to get through it. “There are scorpions and spiders, but don’t worry, if you get bit, it won’t kill you. I know exactly what to do.” I knew scorpions well. I’d seen them when I walked to school or down by the Kabul River, where we went at times to picnic or to throw rocks in the river. They were a greenish brown, with spindly legs and a curling tail with a poisonous sting on the end. Masood tried to reassure us we’d be fine because they had poor eyesight. They were all over, and we often saw them scurrying out of the light of the lantern. The odor was so intense it overpowered us no matter how hard we tried not to think about it. The sour smell settled in our stomachs, and every so often one of us would stop and start retching. Masood turned and waited when one of us was throwing up, then he marched on and we followed.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can’t love God. It is impossible.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“The new socialist government was undertaking a land reform movement that would transform private ownership of property across the entire country.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“We can’t do that forever.” He eyed each of us. Was he reprimanding us silently for how much we cost him? “But I don’t want you to worry about money, because we aren’t running low.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“You all must know that we’ve been living on our savings for the last two years.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“We lived so well here, yet neither he nor Mommy worked.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“But then Mommy had always demanded the best things in life, and here in India she didn’t appear to lack for anything.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“The memories strummed through me as she continued to scrub away—I wasn’t the child she remembered. Yet the warmth of her touch kept me silent for a long while. I was her child. So I let her care for me.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

“The men were deep into their plans or having a great time reminiscing, or both. “I can’t believe it. As soon as one plan falls apart, Padar just comes up with another one,” I said.”
― Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller, The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan