I notice the fans' support, it makes me feel well-liked.

When the work that you put in is recognised, it makes you feel very proud.

I am really thankful towards those who appreciate my work and who encourage me.

We play from the bottom of our hearts, for our country.

I try to take everything in my stride and remain humble, and to enjoy playing as much as possible.

Playing in Europe is a big deal, it helps you to grow.

I feel there's a lot of confidence in me when I'm with the national squad.

Nobody likes it when people say bad things about you, because we're all human beings and we have feelings. Ultimately, though, I always try to make sure that my happiness doesn't depend on what people say but on what I feel in my heart.

When I'm having a tough patch I always try to focus on good things.

People think that the Club World Cup is an easy competition, but it's not.

The day that I think I can no longer start, I'll go home and focus on something else.

I have always worked to start.

You have to win your place every day and train at 100 percent always.

I try to make my kids happy, so when they grow up they can look back and see a father who did important things for their country and tried to make history.

I know what a Champions League final is like.

I believe everything is possible. You have to try things, put your heart into it, try to do the best you can and see what is possible.

I think that all the countries that qualify for a World Cup finals deserve respect and if they are there it is because they have won that right.

I talk to God and ask Him to help me. I tell Him that everything I say and do in the game is for His glory and I ask Him to put me an angel on each side, in each post, and behind me so that everything can turn out fine.

Galatians 1:10 is my favorite passage.

My faith is the most important thing.

I believe that, the moment I had a very personal relationship with God and I really knew what his Word said, it was not about religion. It was about knowing that what the Bible tells us is what He has left us. It changed my life. It filled the void in my heart. That is why I am so grateful.

Hard work is the basis of everything.

You always want to play for the national side.

I don't have to prove anything to anyone.

I'm going to keep giving my best so that the people who don't believe in me start to do so, and enjoy things with me.

undefined

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.

Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world.

Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight.

People find meaning and redemption in the most unusual human connections.

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.

Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves - their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles.

I spent a lot of winters in my childhood flying kites with my brother, with my cousins, with friends in the neighborhood. It's what we did in the winter. Schools close down. There was not much to do.

Family is so central to Afghan life that all Afghan stories are family stories. Family is something I simply can't resist because all the great themes of human life - duty, grief, sacrifice, love, envy - you find all those things within families.

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess.

I grew up in a society with a very ancient and strong oral storytelling tradition. I was told stories, as a child, by my grandmother, and my father as well.

A doctor in a hospital told me that when the mujaheddin were fighting in the early Nineties, he often performed amputations and Caesarean sections without anesthesia because there were no supplies.

I'm a pretty uncomplicated person. I live a very simple life with my family and I enjoy very ordinary things.

I hate resting. I feel restless. My preference is to be working.

Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.

I find myself drawn to that period where children are about to leave childhood behind. When you're 12 years old, you still have one foot in childhood; the other is poised to enter a completely new stage of life. Your innocent understanding of the world moves towards something messier and more complicated, and once it does you can never go back.

I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting.

Economic chasm between people is something that is of interest to me. And something that I used to write about even as a child. It's something I've revisited a few times in my writings.

In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.

There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.

The only two places where I can read for long stretches are in airplanes and in bed at nighttime.

I was told bedtime stories by my father or my grandmother. Books, I mostly read on my own in bed.

My wife is my in-home editor and reads everything I write.

I am always revolted when Islamic leaders, from Afghanistan or elsewhere, deny the very existence of female oppression, avoid the issue by pointing to examples of what they view as Western mistreatment of women, or even worse, justify the oppression of women on the basis of notions derived from Sharia law.