Quotes About Struggle

She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.

After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.

I shook my head no. For minutes, neither of us spoke a word. It breathed between us, what he had said, the pain of a life suppressed, of happiness never to be.

Awake. And alone with demons of my own.

She would grab whatever she could - a look, a whisper, a moan - to salvage from perishing, to preserve. But time is most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn't, in the end, save it all .

Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

If you were the poor, suffering was your currency.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.

Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.

It's often a matter of sitting in front of the computer and worrying. It's what writing comes down to--worrying that things aren't going to work out.

Air grew heavy, damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks.

What was I supposed to be, growing in your womb -- assuming it was even in our womb that I was conceived? A seed of hope? A ticket purchased to ferry you from the dark? A patch for that hole you carried in your heart? If so, then I wasn't enough. I wasn't nearly enough. I was no balm to your pain, only another dead end, another burden, and you must have seen that early on. You must have realized it. But what could you do? You couldn't go down to the pawnshop and sell me.

Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. Thank you but I don't want, Baba said. I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money....Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor.

I was like the patient who cannot explain to the doctor where it hurts, only that it does.

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.

What began with exuberance and passion always ended with terse accusations and hateful words, with rage and weeping fits.

sometimes the shifting of rocks is deep, deep below, and it's powerful and scary down there, but that all we feel on the surface is a slight tremor. Only a slight tremor.

She remembered all too well how time had dragged without him, how she had shuffled about feeling waylaid, out of balance. How shr could ever cope with his permanent absence?

I was not altogether surprised to learn that she had taken her own life. I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.

They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate her in death.

For some people, particularly women, marriage-even an unhappy one such as this-is an escape from even greater unhappiness.

Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.

But coming close wasn't the same as winning, was it? ... He had won because winners won and everyone else just went home