"The Irshad Pass is one of the three great gaps leading north through the Hindu Kush into the most forgotten corner of Afghanistan." Prologue, pg. 35

"The good people who inhabit the frontiers of civilization do not, as a rule, tend to be the world's most sophisticated or cosmopolitan human beings." Part 1: Chapter 1, pg. 41

"For the better part of the past forty-two years, Sarfraz had been, by his own testimony, 'no much success.'" Part 1: Chapter 2, pg. 55

"The northern province of Badakshan has always stood somewhat aloof from the rest of Afghanistan—an isolated region, cut off from the south by the soaring escarpments of the Hindu Kush, whose deepest cultural and historical links extend north into Tajikistan and Uzbekistan." Part 1: Chapter 4, pg. 78

"As I watched the children step into the school courtyard, I couldn't help but notice that the gray, lunar-looking dust now bore the imprints of...