An entire lifetime can change in one afternoon. The rest of the world can continue on, unaware of a quiet, solitary cataclysm occurring a few feet away.

— Nadia Hashimi

As children inch their way into adolescence, the parent changes. He is an authority, a source of answers, and a chastising voice. Depending on the day, he may be resented, emulated, questioned, or defied. Only as an adult can a child imagine his parent as a whole person, as a husband, a brother, or a son. Only then can a child see how his parent fits into the world beyond four walls. Saleem had only bits and pieces of his father, mostly the memories of a young boy. He would spend the rest of his life, he knew, trying to reconstruct his father with the scraps he could recall or gather from his mother.

— Nadia Hashimi

But war had a taming effect

— Nadia Hashimi

Can a mother commit a greater sin than ignoring her intuitions?

— Nadia Hashimi

Children always forgive their mothers. That's the way God's designed them. He gives them two arms, two legs, and a heart that will cry 'mother' until the day it stops beating.

— Nadia Hashimi

Children are touched by heaven—their every breath, every laugh, every touch a sip of water to the desert wanderer. I could not have known this as a child, but I know it as a mother, a truth I learned as my own heart grew, bent, danced, and broke for each of my children

— Nadia Hashimi

Cornered mothers pray for strange things.

— Nadia Hashimi

Do as you must -- you are not a child. But understand that there are many people willing to make your life more difficult. It is up to you to find a way to make things easier for yourself.

— Nadia Hashimi

Every promise we kept, every squeeze of the hand, every secretive smile we exchanged, every crying child we comforted-every one of those moments narrowed the distance between us.

— Nadia Hashimi

Fiction, if done right, can bridge cultural divides. Stories can be a footpath for a reader to step into another land and view its indigenous practices and beliefs through a local lens, instead of a telescope.

— Nadia Hashimi