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[barack Obama] Is Sending More Troops [to Afghanistan], But They Have Also Realized That We Are Not Going To Win That War Through Guns And Tanks. We Have To Engage The Neighbors, And It Is Good That There Is A Non-military Strategy In Addition To A Military Strategy. It Is, At Least, Encouraging. Whether It Will Work Or Not, The Jury Is Still Put.

-Khaled Hosseini

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[barack Obama] Is Sending

Khaled Hosseini

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[barack Obama] Is Sending More Troops [to Afghanistan], But They Have Also Realized That We Are Not Going To Win That War Through Guns And Tanks. We Have To Engage The Neighbors, And It Is Good That There Is A Non-military Strategy In Addition To A Military Strategy. It Is, At Least, Encouraging. Whether It Will Work Or Not, The Jury Is Still Put.

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I Don't Know The Nuts And Bolts Of Writing. I Studied Medicine. I Was A Pre-med Nerd. So Everything I Learned, I Know About Writing Is Very Instinctive.

She Held Her Breath, And In Her Head, Counted Seconds. She Pretended That For Each Second She Didn’t Breathe, God Would Grant Her Another Day

You Say Their Stories, It Is Gift They Give You.

And Yet She Was Leaving The World As A Woman Who Had Love And Been Loved Back. She Was Leaving It As A Friend, A Companion, A Guardian. A Mother. A Person Of Consequence At Last.

The Ordinary, Utterly Mundane Reason Behind The Massacre Makes It Somehow More Terrible, And Far More Depressing. The Word 'senseless' Springs To Mind, And Idris Thwarts It. It's What People Always Say. A Senseless Act Of Violence. A Senseless Murder. As If You Could Commit Sensible Murder.

A Great Deal Remains To Be Done In Afghanistan And The Jury Is Out As To Whether The International Community Has The Commitment And The Patience To See The Rebuilding Process Through.

For Courage, There Must Be Something At Stake. I Come Here With Nothing To Lose.

Nothing To Lose

In Afghan Society, Parents Play A Central Role In The Lives Of Their Children; The Parent-child Relationship Is Fundamental To Who You Are And What You Become And How You Perceive Yourself, And It Is Laden With Contradictions, With Tension, With Anger, With Love, With Loathing, With Angst.

She Was The Trembler Of Knees, The Spiller Of Teacups.

But If You Have A Book That Needs Urgent Reading,' She Said, 'then Hakim Is Your Man.

That Same Night, I Wrote My First Short Story. It Took Me Thirty Minutes. It Was A Dark Little Tale About A Man Who Found A Magic Cup And Learned That If He Wept Into The Cup, His Tears Turned Into Pearls. But Even Though He Had Always Been Poor, He Was A Happy Man And Rarely Shed A Tear. So He Found Ways To Make Himself Sad So That His Tears Could Make Him Rich. As The Pearls Piled Up, So Did His Greed Grow. The Story Ended With The Man Sitting On A Mountain Of Pearls, Knife In Hand, Weeping Helplessly Into The Cup With His Beloved Wife's Slain Body In His Arms.

I Don't Know What This Feather Means, The Story Of It, But I Know It Means He Was Thinking Of Me. For All These Years. He Remembered Me.

Every Woman Needed A Husband, Even If He Did Silence The Song In Her.

I Think Novelists, When They Write Their Books, End Up Having Occasionally Serving A Purpose And Playing Roles That They Never Really Fully Either Intended Or Even Understood.

What Good Is Regret? It Brings Back Nothing. What We Have Lost Is Irretrievable.

At Times , He Didn't Understand The Meaning Of The Koran's Words . But He Said He Liked The Enhancing Sounds The Arabic Words Made As They Rolled Off His Tongue . He Said They Comforted Him , Eased His Heart . "they'll Comfort You Too . Mrariam Jo , " He Said . "you Can Summon Then In Your Time Of Your Need , And They Won't Fail You . God's Words Will Never Betray You , My Girl . (pg.17)

She Is Furious With Herself For Her Own Stupidity. Opening Herself Up Like This, Voluntarily, To A Lifetime Of Worry And Anguish. It Was Madness. Sheer Lunacy. A Spectacularly Foolish And Baseless Faith, Against Enormous Odds, That A World You Do Not Control Will Not Take From You The One Thing You Cannot Bear To Lose. Faith That The World Will Not Destroy You.

All My Life, She Gave To Me A Shovel And Said, Fill These Holes Inside Of Me, Pari.

The Rope That Pulls You From The Flood Can Become A Noose Around Your Neck.

Panic. You Open Your Mouth. Open It So Wide Your Jaws Creak. You Order Your Lungs To Draw Air, Now, You Need Air, Need It Now. But Your Airways Ignore You. They Collapse, Tighten, Squeeze, And Suddenly You're Breaithing Through A Drinking Straw. Your Mouth Closes And Your Lips Purse And All You Can Manage Is A Croak. Your Hands Wriggle And Shake. Somewhere A Dam Has Cracked Open And A Flood Of Cold Sweat Spills, Drenches Your Body. You Want To Scream. You Would If You Could. Cut You Have To Breathe To Scream. Panic.

The Film [kite Runner] Was Not As Big A Hit In The United States As It Was Worldwide, I Think It May Have Been Swallowed Up By All The Other Movies It Had To Go Up Against.

Nothing Good Came Free. Even Love. You Paid For All Things. And If You Were Poor, Suffering Was Your Currency.

America Was Different. America Was A River, Roarng Along, Unmindful Of The Past. I Could Wade Into This River, Let My Sins Drown To The Bottom, Let The Waters Carry Me Someplace Far. Someplace With No Ghosts, No Memories, And No Sins.

Soon, He Would Become An Adult. And When He Did, There Would Be Not Going Back Because Adulthood Was Akin To What His Father Had Once Said About Being A War Hero: One You Became One, You Died One.

Then I Think Of All The Tricks, All The Minutes All The Hours And Days And Weeks And Months And Years Waiting For Me. All Of It Without Them. And I Can't Breathe Then, Like Someone's Stepping On My Heart, Laila. So Weak I Just Want To Collapse Somewhere.

I Read Actual Physical Books And Have Thus Far Avoided The Electronic Lure.

As Far As I Know, He Never Asked Where She Had Been Or Why She Had Left And She Never Told. I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

I Opened My Mouth, Almost Said Something. Almost. The Rest Of My Life Might Have Turned Out Differently If I Had. But I Didn’t.

The Problem, Of Course, Was That [he] Saw The World In Black And White. And He Got To Decide What Was Black And What Was White. You Can't Love A Person Who Lives That Way Without Fearing Him Too. Maybe Even Hating Him A Little.

Black And White

A Sudden Happiness Catches Me Unawares. I Feel It Trickling Into Me, And My Eyes Go Liquid With Gratitude And Hope.

When I Was In Afghanistan In 2007, I Went From Village To Village Where Refugees Had Returned, And They Were Living Out In The Open Under Tents, Sometimes Completely Exposed To The Environment. And They Were Homeless, Which Meant They Would Lose Children In The Winter To The Cold And In The Summers In The Extreme Heat. It's Extremely Humiliating For Them To Be Homeless, Culturally It's Very Shameful.

Educate Yourself, Learn About What Refugees Face When They Don't Have Homes, After They Have Lost Everything.

Lost Everything

I Loved Him In That Moment, Loved Him More Than I'd Ever Loved Anyone, And I Wanted To To Tell Them All That I Was The Snake In The Grass, The Monster In The Lake. I Wasn't Worthy Of This Sacrifice; I Was A Liar, A Cheat, A Thief. And I Would Have Told, Except That A Part Of Me Was Glad. Glad That This Would All Be Over With Soon. Baba Would Dismiss Them, There Would Be Some Pain, But Life Would Move On. I Wanted That, To Move On, To Forget, To Start With A Clean Slate. I Wanted To Be Able To Breathe Again.

It's Wrong What They Say About The Past, I've Learned, About How You Can Bury It. Because The Past Claws Its Way Out.

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.

Like A Compass Needle That Points North, A Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds A Woman. Always.

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.

My Books Are About Ordinary People, Like You, Me, People On The Street, People Who Really Have An Expectation Of Reasonable Happiness In Life, Want Their Life To Have A Sense Of Security And Predictability, Who Want To Belong To Something Bigger Than Them, Who Want Love And Affection In Their Life, Who Want A Good Future For The Children.

We Will Also Be Funding Projects That Empower Women And Children In Afghanistan And Now And Then Give Scholarships To Afghan Students Here In The Bay Area.

If My Book Generates Any Sort Of Dialogue Among Afghans, Then I Think It Will Have Done A Service To The Community.

If There Was A God, He'd Guide The Winds, Let Them Blow For Me So That, With A Tug Of My String, I'd Cut Loose My Pain, My Longing.

Not A Word Passes Between Us, Not Because We Have Nothing To Say, But Because We Don't Have To Say Anything

At Last, She Makes Her Choice. She Turns Around, Drops Her Head, And Walks Toward A Horizon She Cannot See. After That, She Does Not Look Back Anymore. She Knows That If She Does, She Will Weaken.

I Wanted To Write About Afghanistan Before The Soviet War Because That Is Largely A Forgotten Period In Modern Afghan History.

Hassan And I Fed From The Same Breasts. We Took Our First Steps On The Same Lawn In The Same Yard. And, Under The Same Roof, We Spoke Our First Words. Mine Was Baba. His Was Amir. My Name. Looking Back On It Now, I Think The Foundation For What Happened In The Winter Of 1975 —and All That Followed— Was Already Laid In Those First Words.

But Time, It Is Like Charm. You Never Have As Much As You Think.

No One Has To Know. No One Would. It Would Be Her Secret, One She Would Share With The Mountains Only. The Question Is Whether It Is A Secret She Can Live With, And Parwana Thinks She Knows The Answer. She Has Lived With Secrets All Her Life.

People Talk About Apathy, Especially In Developed Countries. We're Kind Of Lulled Into These Tranquil Lives, And We Are Pursuing Our Own Thing And There Is So Much Suffering On A Mass Scale Around The World That You Kind Of Become Fatalistic. You Might Think Suffering Is Inevitable, You Kind Of Lose Your Sense Of Moral Urgency. But There Is Always Something You Can Do For Someone In The World.

I Learned That The World Didn't See The Inside Of You, That It Didn't Care A Whit About The Hopes And Dreams, And Sorrows, That Lay Masked By Skin And Bone. It Was As Simple, As Absurd, And As Cruel As That.

Throughout The Last Century There Were Multiple Attempts At Giving Afghan Women More Autonomy, To Change Marriage Laws, To Abolish The Practice Of Bride Price And Child Marriage, And To Enforce Women To Be Involved In School. Every Time, The Reaction From The Traditionalists Was One Of Contempt And Scorn And At Times Outright Rebellion. I Think The Emancipation Of Women In Afghanistan Has To Come From Inside, Through Afghans Themselves, Gradually, Over Time.

My Wife Is My In-home Editor And Reads Everything I Write.

Men Are Easy,' He Said, Fingers Tapping On His Mahogany Desk. 'a Man's Plumbing Is Like His Mind: Simple, Very Few Surprises. You Ladies, On The Other Hand...well, God Put A Lot Of Thought Into Making You.

I Was Overwhelmed With The Kindness Of People [in Afghanistan] And Found That They Had Managed To Retain Their Dignity, Their Pride, And Their Hospitality Under Unspeakably Bleak Conditions.

I Think The Changes That Have Happened, There Have Been Come Positive, But By And Large, You Have To Say The Changes Have Been Negative. The Situation Has Reached A Fairly Critical Stage In Afghanistan.

Yet Love Can Move People To Act In Unexpected Ways And Move Them To Overcome The Most Daunting Obstacles With Startling Heroism

There Is Only One Sin. And That Is Theft... When You Tell A Lie, You Steal Someones Right To The Truth.

‎i Know You're Still Young But I Want You To Understand And Learn This Now. Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot. You're A Very Very Bright Girl. Truly You Are. You Can Be Anything You Want Laila. I Know This About You. And I Also Know That When This War Is Over Afghanistan Is Going To Need You As Much As Its Men Maybe Even More. Because A Society Has No Chance Of Success If Its Women Are Uneducated Laila. No Chance.

James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now This Lou Gehrig Fellow Of Mine. How Did Men Come To Monopolize Disease Names Too?

I Laughed. Partly At The Joke, Partly At How Afghan Humor Never Changed. Wars Were Waged, The Internet Was Invented, And A Robot Had Rolled On The Surface Of Mars, And In Afghanistan We Were Still Telling Mullah Nasruddin Jokes.

For Many People In The West, Afghanistan Is Synonymous With The Soviet War And The Taliban. I Wanted To Remind People That Afghans Had Managed To Live In Peaceful Anonymity For Decades, That The History Of The Afghans In The Twentieth Century Has Been Largely Pacific And Harmonious.

How Many More People Right Now Feel Connected To Mumbai Because Of Slumdog Millionaire, Or Suddenly Are Interested In The Plight Of Orphans On Mumbai After Seeing That Film? The Same Thing With The Kite Runner And A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Life Goes On, Unmindful Of Beginning, End…crisis Or Catharsis, Moving Forward Like A Slow, Dusty Caravan Of Kochis (nomads).

You Have Think Tanks Like The Widely Respected Atlantic Council That Have Published Reports In The Past Year That Have Called Afghanistan A Failing State.

I Suspect The Truth Is That We Are Waiting, All Of Us, Against Insurmountable Odds, For Something Extraordinary To Happen To Us.

She Was An Extraordinary Woman, And I Went To Bed That Night Feeling Like I Was Perhaps More Than Ordinary Myself. This Was The Effect She Had On Me.

There Is A God, There Always Has Been. I See Him Here, In The Eyes Of The People In This [hospital] Corridor Of Desperation. This Is The Real House Of God, This Is Where Those Who Have Lost God Will Find Him... There Is A God, There Has To Be, And Now I Will Pray, I Will Pray That He Will Forgive That I Have Neglected Him All Of These Years, Forgive That I Have Betrayed, Lied, And Sinned With Impunity Only To Turn To Him Now In My Hour Of Need. I Pray That He Is As Merciful, Benevolent, And Gracious As His Book Says He Is.

A Man's Heart Is A Wretched, Wretched Thing. It Isn't Like A Mother's Womb. It Won't Bleed. It Won't Stretch To Make Room For You.

I'm Gladly Doing My Own Thing For The Time Being.

No Matter Where We're Born, Which Countries We're Raised In, What Cultures We Come From, There Are Some Universal Experiences We All Have As Children. We All Kind Of Start The Same. We Want The Love Of Our Parents, Companionship, Friends, We Want To Have Fun, To Play, And We're All Hurt The First Time We Learn That The World Is Far From Perfect Place - It's The Start Of A Series Of Epiphanies And Realizations That Is What Growing Up Is All About.

I Have A Theory About Marriage, Monsieur Boustouler. And It’s That Nearly Always You Will Know Within Two Weeks If It’s Going To Work. It’s Astonishing How Many People Remain Shackled For Years, Decades Even, In A Protracted And Mutual State Of Self-delusion And False Hope When In Fact They Had Their Answer In Those First Two Weeks.

After All, Life Is Not A Hindi Movie.

It's Literally Just Been Formed. It's A 501 C3, Non-profit Charitable Foundation Called, Unsurprisingly, The Khalled Hosseini Foundation. The Aim Is To Help Refugees And Aim Vulnerable Women And Children.

I Thought About You All The Time. I Used To Pray That You’d Live To Be A Hundred Years Old. I Didn’t Know. I Didn’t Know That You Were Ashamed Of Me.

And Suddenly, Just Like That, Hope Became Knowledge. I Was Going To Win. It Was Just A Matter Of When.

[barack Obama] Is Sending More Troops [to Afghanistan], But They Have Also Realized That We Are Not Going To Win That War Through Guns And Tanks. We Have To Engage The Neighbors, And It Is Good That There Is A Non-military Strategy In Addition To A Military Strategy. It Is, At Least, Encouraging. Whether It Will Work Or Not, The Jury Is Still Put.

It Turned Out That, Like Satan, Cancer Had Many Names.

I Ran. A Grown Man Running With A Swarm Of Screaming Children. But I Didn't Care. I Ran With The Wind Blowing In My Face, And A Smile As Wide As The Valley Of Panjsher On My Lip. I Ran

In The Coming Days And Weeks, Laila Would Scramble Frantically To Commit It All To Memory, What Happened Next. 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.

I Have Very Fond Memories Of My Childhood In Afghanistan, Largely Because My Memories, Unlike Those Of The Current Generation Of Afghans, Are Untainted By The Spectre Of War, Landmines, And Famine.

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.

My Family Left Afghanistan In 1976, Well Before The Communist Coup And The Soviet Invasion. We Certainly Thought We Would Be Going Back. But When We Saw Those Soviet Tanks Rolling Into Afghanistan, The Prospect For Return Looked Very Dim. Few Of Us, I Have To Say, Envisioned That Nearly A Quarter Century Of Bloodletting Would Follow.

Probably The Single Most Commen Response I Get From My Readesr, Be It Through E-mails Or Letters, Is That They Did Not Know Much, Or At Times, They're Quite Frank, They Didn't Care Much About Afghanistan. But They Pay Attention More After Reading These Novels, And At Times It Has Triggered This Humaitarian Spirt: Some Have Donated Money Or At Time Times, People Have Joined Humatiarian Organizations That Work In Afghanistan.

But The Game Involves Only Male Names. Because, If It's A Girl, Laila Has Already Named Her

My Memories Of Kabul Are Vastly Different Than The Way It Is When I Go There Now. My Memories Are Of The Final Years Before Everything Changed. When I Grew Up In Kabul, It Couldn't Be Mistaken For Beirut Or Tehran, As It Was Still In A Country That's Essentially Religious And Conservative, But It Was Suprisingly Progressive And Liberal.

Reading Is An Active, Imaginative Act; It Takes Work.

Nothing Wrong With Cowardice As Long As It Comes With Prudence. But When A Coward Stops Remembering Who He Is... God Help Him.

Dr. Bashiri, If I Ever Want To Put A Curse In Someone, I Say, 'may God Give You A Restaurant.

People Find Meaning And Redemption In The Most Unusual Human Connections.

Human Connection

It Was The Kind Of Love That, Sooner Or Later, Cornered You Into A Choice: Either You Tore Free Or You Stayed And Withstood Its Rigor Even As It Squeezed You Into Something Smaller Than Yourself.

Was There Happiness At The End [of The Movie], They Wanted To Know. If Someone Were To Ask Me Today Whether The Story Of Hassan, Sohrab, And Me Ends With Happiness, I Wouldn't Know What To Say. Does Anybody's? After All, Life Is Not A Hindi Movie. Zendagi Migzara, Afghans Like To Say: Life Goes On, Undmindful Of Beginning, En, Kamyab, Nah-kam, Crisis Or Catharsis, Moving Forward Like A Slow, Dusty Caravan Of Kochis.

You Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

At The Door , She Made Him Promise To Go Without Goodbyes .she Closed The Door On Him . Laila Leaned Her Back Against It , Shaking Against His Pounding Fists , One Arm Gripping Her Belly And A Hand Across Her Mouth , As He Spoke Throughout The Door And Promised That He Would Come Back For Her . She Stood There Until He Tired , Until He Gave Up , And Then She Listened To His Uneven Footsteps Until They Faded , Until All Was Quiet , Save For The Gunfire Cracking In The Hills And Her Own Heart Thudding In Her Belly , Her Eyes , Her Bones .

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.

[kite Runner And A Thousand Splendid Suns] Is Not Just Unique To Books, But Films And Music.

There Are, However, Those Who Have Called The Book [the Kite Runner] Divisive And Objected To Some Of The Issues Raised In The Book, Namely Racism, Discrimination, Ethnic Inequality Etc.

He Said That If Culture Is A House, Then Language Was The Key To The Front Door; To All The Rooms Inside. Without It, He Said, You Ended Up Wayward, Without A Proper Home Or A Legitimate Identity.

I Came From An Educated, Upper Middle-class Family. My Mother Was A Persian And History Teacher At A Large High School For Girls. Many Of The Women In My Extended Family And In Our Circle Of Friends Were Professionals. In Those Days, Women Were A Vital Part Of The Economy In Kabul. They Worked As Lawyers, Physicians, College Professors, Etc., Which Makes The Tragedy Of How They Were Treated By The Taliban That Much More Painful.

J’aurais Dû être Plus Gentille—i Should Have Been More Kind. That Is Something A Person Will Never Regret. You Will Never Say To Yourself When You Are Old, Ah, I Wish I Was Not Good To That Person. You Will Never Think That.

I Remember Reading 'the Grapes Of Wrath' In High School In 1983. My Family Had Immigrated To The U.s. Three Years Before, And I Had Spent The Better Part Of The First Two Years Learning English. John Steinbeck's Book Was The First Book I Read In English Where I Had An 'aha!' Moment, Namely In The Famed Turtle Chapter.

When You Kill A Man, You Steal A Life. You Steal His Wife's Right To A Husband, Rob His Children Of A Father. When You Tell A Lie, You Steal Someone's Right To The Truth. When You Cheat, You Steal The Right To Fairness.

There Is A Way To Be Good Again.

There [in Afghanistan ] Is A Tremendous Need For Selter. So I Am Focusing Most Of The Efforts Of The Foundation To Building Shelters For Refugees In Northern Afghanistan And We Have Already Begun Doing So.

By Then The Kite Runner Had Become Quite Successful And I Found Myself In A Position That I Had Always Dreamed Of My Whole Life, Which Was To Write For A Living.

I Found Myself Sitting At The Computer, And I Thought I Was Going To Write A Kind Of Simple Nostalgic Story About Two Boys And Their Love Of Kite Fighting. But Stories Have A Will Of Their Own, And This One Turned Out To Be This Dark Tale About Betrayal, Loss, Regret. The Short Story Which Was About 25 Pages Long Sat Around For A Couple Of Years.

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.

I Experienced Kabul With My Brother The Way Amir And Hassan Do: Long School Days In The Summer, Kite Fighting In The Winter Time, Westerns With John Wayne At Cinema Park, Big Parties At Our House In Wazir Akbar Khan, Picnics In Paghman.

Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life.

And The Past Held Only This Wisdom: That Love Was A Damaging Mistake, And Its Accomplice, Hope, A Treacherous Illusion. And Whenever Those Twin Poisonous Flowers Began To Sprout In The Parched Land Of That Field, Mariam Uprooted Them. She Uprooted Them And Ditched Them Before They Took Hold.

Even After The Kite Runner Was Published I Continued To Practice For Another Eighteen Months. But I Had Always Had A Love Of Writing And A Compulsion To Do It.

There [in The Kite Runner] Certainly Are, As Is Always The Case With Fiction, Autobiographical Elements Woven Through The Narrative.

Equally Important Is The Lack Of Cultivable Land For Farmers, A Profound Problem When You Take Into Account That Afghanistan Has Always Largely Been An Agricultural Country, And That Even Before The Wars Destroyed Lands And Irrigation Canals, Only 5 Per Cent Of The Land Was Cultivable.

They Tell Me I Must Wade Into Waters, Where I Will Soon Drown. Before I March In, I Leave This On The Shore For You. I Pray You Find It, Sister, So You Will Know What Was In My Heart As I Went Under.

At The Time We Are Focusing Our Efforts Primarily On Building Shelters For Refugees. Homelessness In Afghanistan Is A Huge Problem.

Tariq Tucked The Gun Into The Waist Of His Denims. Then He Said A Thing Both Lovely And Terrible. "for You," He Said. "i'd Kill With It For You, Laila.

In The End, The World Always Wins. That's Just The Way Of Things.

Those Who Saw Kite Runner Loved The Film, For The Most Part, People Seemed To Really Like The Film.

One Time, When I Was Very Little, I Climbed A Tree And Ate These Green, Sour Apples. My Stomach Swelled And Became Hard Like A Drum, It Hurt A Lot. Mother Said That If I'd Just Waited For The Apples To Ripen, I Wouldn't Have Become Sick. So Now, Whenever I Really Want Something, I Try To Remember What She Said About The Apples.

The Experience Of Writing 'the Kite Runner' Is One I Will Always Think Back On With Fondness. There Is An Energy, A Romance In Writing The First Novel That Can Never Be Duplicated Again.

All Stories I Write Are Compulsive. Anything I’ve Ever Written Was Because I Don’t Have A Choice. I Write Stories Because I Can’t Wait To Tell It, I Can’t Wait To See How It Ends.

Whether You Do Something Or Decide To Do Nothing, Either Way, You Are Making A Moral Choice. And I Hope People Make The Right One.

I Wanted To Tell Them That, In Kabul, We Snapped A Tree Branch And Used It As A Credit Card. Hassan And I Would Take The Wooden Stick To The Bread Maker. He'd Carve Notches On Our Stick With His Knife, One Notch For Each Loaf Of Naan He'd Pull For Us From The Tandoor's Roaring Flames. At The End Of The Month, My Father Paid Him For The Number Of Notches On The Stick. That Was It. No Questions. No Id.

Laila Remembered Mammy Telling Babi Once That She Had Married A Man Who Had No Convictions. Mammy Didn't Understand. She Didn't Understand That If She Looked Into A Mirror, She Would Find The One Unfailing Conviction Of His Life Looking Right Back At Her.

You Say You Have No Courage, But I See It In You. What You Did, The Burden You Agreed To Shoulder, Took Courage. For That, I Honor You.

When I Go To Afghanistan, I Realize I've Been Spared, Due To A Random Genetic Lottery, By Being Born To People Who Had The Means To Get Out. Every Time I Go To Afghanistan I Am Haunted By That.

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.

Michael Bealmear Is A Philanthropist, And He Has Become Interested In The Issue Of Refugees, And He Proposed That We Do An Event In His Community, Where We Could Dedicate An Entire Evening Focused On The Global Refugee Crisis, Focused Primarily On Afghanistan.

I Returned To Afghanistan Because I Had A Deep Longing To See For Myself How People Lived, What They Thought Of Their Government, How Optimistic They Were About The Future Of Their Homeland.

I Came To The Us As An Immigrant And I Recall Vividly Those First Few Years In California, The Brief Time We Spent On Welfare, And The Difficult Task Of Assimilating Into A New Culture.

War Doesn't Negate Decency. It Demands It, Even More Than In Times Of Peace.

He Knew I'd Seen Everything In That Alley, That I'd Stood There And Done Nothing. He Knew That I'd Betrayed Him And Yet He Was Rescuing Me Once Again, Maybe For The Last Time.

Sometimes, Soraya Sleeping Next To Me, I Lay In Bed And Listened To The Screen Door Swinging Open And Shut With The Breeze, To The Crickets Chirping In The Yard. And I Could Almost Feel The Emptiness In Soraya's Womb, Like It Was A Living, Breathing Thing. It Had Seeped Into Our Marriage, That Emptiness, Into Our Laughs, And Our Love-making. And Late At Night, In The Darkness Of Our Room, I'd Feel It Rising From Soraya And Setting Between Us. Sleeping Between Us. Like A Newborn Child.

And That's The Thing About People Who Mean Everything They Say. They Think Everyone Else Does Too.

Laila Has Moved On. Because In The End She Knows That’s All She Can Do. That And Hope.

Gone. Vanished. Nothing Left. Nothing Said.

I Would Give Them (aspiring Writers) The Oldest Advice In The Craft: Read And Write. Read A Lot. Read New Authors And Established Ones, Read People Whose Work Is In The Same Vein As Yours And Those Whose Genre Is Totally Different. You've Heard Of Chain-smokers. Writers, Especially Beginners, Need To Be Chain-readers. And Lastly, Write Every Day. Write About Things That Get Under Your Skin And Keep You Up At Night.

You're Gutless. It's How You Were Made. And That's Not Such A Bad Thing Because Your Saving Grace Is That You've Never Lied To Yourself About It. Not About That. Nothing Wrong With Cowardice As Long As It Comes With Prudence. But When A Coward Stops Remembering Who He Is... God Help Him.

And One More Thing...you Will Never Again Refer To Him As 'hazara Boy' In My Presence. He Has A Name And It's Sohrab.

The Bewildering Success Of My Books Continues To Surprise Me.

The Novel [the Kite Runner] Came About As An Expansion Of That Original, Unpublished Short Story.

And Every Day I Thank [god] That I Am Alive, Not Because I Fear Death, But Because My Wife Has A Husband And My Son Is Not An Orphan.

Now, Especially In Public Places, You Always Have That Unease. When The Children Were Cast, If I Thought That They Might Be Victims Of Violence Because Of Participating In This Movie, We Would Have Chosen Children From Outside This Country.

I Wondered If That Was How Forgiveness Budded; Not With The Fanfare Of Epiphany, But With Pain Gathering Its Things, Packing Up, And Slipping Away Unannounced In The Middle Of The Night.

Literary Fiction Is Kept Alive By Women. Women Read More Fiction, Period.

He Had The Blue Kite In His Hands; That Was The First Thing I Saw. And I Can't Lie Now And Say My Eyes Didn't Scan It For Any Rips.

It's Hard When You Make A Film From A Book That So Many People Love, Because There's No Way To Get The Entire Story Into A Two-hour Movie. But I Was Pleased With The Reaction [for Kite Runner].

The Warlords Took Part In Atrocities During The Civil War In Afghanistan. They Looted, They Raped, They Killed. They Have Become Incredibly Empowered And Entrenched. They Live In Mansions, They Have Jobs In The Government, And They're Incredibly Powerful. In Kabul, People Don't Want To Speak About It Too Publicly, Because These People Are Essentially Like Tony Soprano.

Afghan Women, As A Group, I Think Their Suffering Has Been Equaled By Very Few Other Groups In Recent World History.

I Think He Loved Us Equally, But Differently.

Blood Is A Powerful Thing

You Don't Have To Donate Money, It Can Be Clothes, Or Books, Or Mediavl Supplies. So There's So Much That Can Be Done [for Refugees], The Most Difficult Thing Is That First Step That Decision To Do Something.

Without Women Taking An Active Role In Afghan Society, Rebuilding Afghanistan Is Going To Be Very Difficult.

I Have Been Involved With The Un Refugee Agency For A Few Years Now, And We Have Done Events To Speak About Refugees, Focusing More And More On The Situation With Afghan Refugees.

On A High Mountain I Stood, And Cried The Name Of Ali, Lion Of God.o Ali, Lion Of God, King Of Men, Bring Joy To Our Sorrowful Hearts.

At That Moment, She Cannot Think Of A More Reckless, Irrational Thing Than Choosing To Become A Parent.

I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

A Part Of Me Was Hoping Someone Would Wake Up And Hear, So I Wouldn't Have To Live With This Lie Anymore. But No One Woke Up And In The Silence That Followed, I Understood The Nature Of My New Curse: I Was Going To Get Away With It.

Inside Laila Too A Battle Was Being Waged : Guilt On One Side, Partnered With Shame, And, On The Other, The Conviction That What She And Tariq Had Done Was Not Sinful; That It Had Been Natural, Good, Beautiful, Even Inevitable, Spurred By The Knowledge That They Might Never See Each Other Again.

The Short Of It Is, As An Aspiring Writer, There Is Nothing As Damaging To Your Credibility As Saying That You Don't Like To Read.

Aspiring Writers

So, Then. You Want A Story And I Will Tell You One.

Mariam Lay On The Couch, Hands Tucked Between Her Knees, Watched The Whirlpool Of Snow Twisting And Spinning Outside The Window. She Remembered Nana Saying Once That Each Snowflake Was A Sigh Heaved By An Aggrieved Woman Somewhere In The World. That All The Sighs Drifted Up The Sky, Gathered Into Clouds, Then Broke Into Tiny Pieces That Fell Silently On The People Below. As A Reminder Of How People Like Us Suffer, She'd Said. How Quietly We Endure All That Falls Upon Us.

I Finally Had What I'd Wantes All Those Years. Except Now That I Had It, I Felt As Empty As This Unkempt Pool I Was Dangling My Legs Into.

I Give Novels As Gifts, And There Is Nothing I Like To Receive More As A Gift.

Years Later, I Learned An English Word For The Creature That Assef Was, A Word For Which A Good Farsi Equivalent Does Not Exist: Sociopath.

He Is Annoyed With Their Lack Of Interest, Their Blithe Ignorance Of The Arbitrary Genetic Lottery That Has Granted Them Their Privileged Lives.

People Learned To Live With The Most Unimaginable Things.

Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot.

The Bulk Of Our Efforts [in The Khaled Hosseini Foundation] Has Focused On Helping Build Permanent Shelters For Returning Refugees Who Are Homeless, Living Out In The Open Or In Makeshift Homes. This Is An Area Of Urgent Need As Afghanistan's Natural Elements Are Quite Harsh, With Very Hot Summers, And Freezing Winters.

The Taliban's Acts Of Cultural Vandalism - The Most Infamous Being The Destruction Of The Giant Bamiyan Buddhas - Had A Devastating Effect On Afghan Culture And The Artistic Scene. The Taliban Burned Countless Films, Vcrs, Music Tapes, Books, And Paintings. They Jailed Filmmakers, Musicians, Painters, And Sculptors.

Afghanistan Has Always Been Sort Of A Fractured Nation, Very Tribal, Where The Countryside And The Distant Provinces Have Been Run By Custom, By Tribal Law And By Tribal Leaders Rather Than Edicts From The Central Government In Kabul.

Zindagi Migzara (life Goes On)

I Will Follow You To The Ends Of The World.

But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

It's Wrong To Hurt Even Bad People. Because They Don't Know Any Better, And Because Bad People Sometimes Become Good.

I Have A Particular Disdain For Islamic Extremism, And Of Course, In Both 'the Kite Runner' And 'a Thousand Splendid Suns' That's Obvious.

Now, No Matter What The Mullah Teaches, There Is Only One Sin, Only One. And That Is Theft. Every Other Sin Is A Variation Of Theft.

In Early 1999, I Was Watching Tv, When I Came Across A Story On Afghanistan. It Was A Story About The Taliban And The Restrictions They Were Imposing On The Afghan People, Most Notably Women. At Some Point In The Story, There Was A Casual Reference To Them Having Banned The Game Of Kite Fighting. This Detail Struck A Personal Chord With Me, As I Had Grown Up In Kabul Flying Kite With My Friends.

I Get Daily E-mails From Afghans Who Thank Me For Writing This Book [the Kite Runner], As They Feel A Slice Of Their Story Has Been Told By One Of Their Own. So, For The Most Part, I Have Been Overwhelmed With The Kindness Of My Fellow Afghans.

But Better To Get Hurt By The Truth Than Comforted With A Lie.

I Became What I Am Today At The Age Of Twelve, On A Frigid Overcast Day In The Winter Of 1975. I Remember The Precise Moment, Crouching Behind A Crumbling Mud Wall, Peeking Into The Alley Near The Frozen Creek. That Was A Long Time Ago, But It’s Wrong What They Say About The Past, I’ve Learned, About How You Can Bury It. Because The Past Claws Its Way Out. Looking Back Now, I Realize I Have Been Peeking Into That Deserted Alley For The Last Twenty-six Years.

I Entered The Literary World, Really, From Outside. My Entire Background Has Been In Sciences; I Was A Biology Major In College, Then Went To Medical School. I've Never Had Any Formal Training In Writing. So What I Know About Writing, I Know From My Own Instincts, And Whatever The Narrative Voice Is In My Own Head.

I'm Sorry," Laila Says, Marveling At How Every Afghan Story Is Marked By Death And Loss And Unimaginable Grief. And Yet, She Sees, People Find A Way To Survive, To Go On.

I Also Felt The Kite Runner Was A Story That Would Lend Itself Well To A Visual Retelling In A Graphic Novel.

I Have Lived A Long Time, And One Thing I Have Come To See Is That One Is Well Served By A Degree Of Both Humility And Charity When Judging The Inner Workings Of Another Person's Heart

Afghanistan Is A Rural Nation, Where 85 Percent Of People Live In The Countryside. And Out There It's Very, Very Conservative, Very Tribal - Almost Medieval.

I Have Been A Fan Of Comic Books Since Childhood.

The Story Of What Has Happened To Women In Afghanistan, However, Is A Very Important One, And Fertile Ground For Fiction.

In Afghanistan, You Don't Understand Yourself Solely As An Individual. You Understand Yourself As A Son, A Brother, A Cousin To Somebody, An Uncle To Somebody. You Are Part Of Something Bigger Than Yourself.

Boys, Laila Came To See, Treated Friendship The Way They Treated The Sun: Its Existence Undisputed; Its Radiance Best Enjoyed, Not Beheld Directly.

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.

Must Have Been Quite The Culture Shock, Going There.” “yes It Was.” Idris Doesn’t Say That The Real Culture Shock Has Been In Coming Back.

All Good Things In Life Are Fragile And Easily Lost

It's A Funny Thing... But People Mostly Have It Backward. They Think They Live By What They Want. But Really, What Guides Them Is What They're Afraid Of. What They Don't Want.

There Are So Many Orgizations That Do Amazing Work. I Represent Not Only My Own Foundation, But The Un Refugee Agency, Which Has Been Around Since 1951, And Has Helped 30 Million Refugees Around The World.

Writing Fiction Is The Act Of Weaving A Series Of Lies To Arrive At A Greater Truth.

She Would Never Leave Her Mark On Mammy's Heart The Way Her Brothers Had, Because Mammy's Heart Was Like A Pallid Beach Where Laila's Footprints Would Forever Wash Away Beneath The Waves Of Sorrow That Swelled And Crashed, Swelled And Crashed.

Her Impulse, Her Need, To Be The Corrector Of Injustices, Warden Of The Downtrodden Flock. And

I Think The Emancipation Of Women In Afghanistan Has To Come From Inside, Through Afghans Themselves, Gradually, Over Time.

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.

You Have Extreme Poverty And High Crime And You Have To Admit That The Governance Of The Kabul Regime Has Been Poor And Has Been Losing Its Popular Legitimacy. You Have A Corrupt Police Force, Not To Mention Homelessness, Joblessness. The Problems Are Huge.

I Want To Tear Myself From This Place, From This Reality, Rise Up Like A Cloud And Float Away, Melt Into This Humid Summer Night And Dissolve Somewhere Far, Over The Hills. But I Am Here, My Legs Blocks Of Concrete, My Lungs Empty Of Air, My Throat Burning. There Will Be No Floating Away.

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