Born Under a Million Shadows Quotes

“In fact, I couldn't help thinking that despite their height, adults were just plain unbelievably stupid: men were blowing up other men; soldiers were shooting at children; men were ignoring women they loved; the women who loved them pretended they didn't; and when I read the newspapers to Pir Hederi everyone they talked about seemed to be far more interested in rules and arguments and taking sides than the actual business of living.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“I know most people think of spring as the season of new beginnings, when women chase the winter dirt from their homes, when the plants come out of hiding and the animals give birth to their new babies, but for me autumn is the season that whispers fresh promise.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Education is the key to Afghanistan's successful future, Fawad, because it fights ignorance and intolerance and brings the blessing of opportunity. When a man has knowledge he has power- the power to make informed decisions; the power to distinguish truth from lies; and the power to shape his own destiny in accordance with God's wills. He is stronger than the ignorant man, who can do nothing but blindly accept the supposed learning of another.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“I suppose that's all anybody ever wants in life- to find someone who thinks the world of them.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Sometimes I think the dead have it easy. The difficult part is staying alive, and more than that, wanting to stay alive.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“And it helped me too because I could see that away from the politicians and their arguments, away from the suicide bombers and their murders, and away from the soldiers and their guns, people were good. Afghan people were good.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Up to that point I'd never believed in love at first sight, and it's not something that you can easily explain, but it's a state of the mind and heart that makes your body feel alive and makes each morning that comes worth waking up for.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“It was night when the lights woke me, the time of night when you're struck between yesterday and today and everything's so quiet and deaf with sleep there's no sign of the morning coming to get you. It was the time of night that calls for a stretch and a smile.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Were we really so different from one another?”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“As I lay in my room, I looked back on the day with all of its colors and surprises- a day when the rich sat with the poor, the Godless with the believers, the foreigners with Afghans, the men with women, and the children with adults. It was how a perfect world might be if people didn't keep strangling one another in rules and laws and fear.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“The best weapon the Afghan people have against the Taliban or any other terrible power that may choose to put itself in Afghanistan is education.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Ponekad kada ne posjeduješ ama baš ništa, jedina stvar koje se možeš držati jeste ponos. Ali čak i obične riječi to ti mogu oduzeti.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Poetry and our love of it is one of the craziest things about Afghanistan. Men will shoot someone in the head without a second thought, families will sell their daughters into marriage for a bucket of sand, and everyone will shit on the dead body of their enemy given half the chance; but at the sound of a well-written verse an Afghan man will become weak as a woman.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“Education is the key to Afghanistan’s successful future, Fawad, because it fights ignorance and intolerance and brings the blessing of opportunity. When a man has knowledge he has power – the power to make informed decisions; the power to distinguish truth from lies; and the power to shape his own destiny in accordance with God’s will. He is stronger than the ignorant man who can do nothing but blindly accept the supposed learning of another.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“It appeared that in the West, if you were annoyed by just about anything you simply beat the nearest man to you.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows

“As she raced through the fields with her red scarf floating from her neck, I thought she looked like a firework.”
― Andrea Busfield, Born Under a Million Shadows