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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.

-Khaled Hosseini

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Hassan And I Fed

Khaled Hosseini

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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.

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But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

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The Things That Have Always Drawn Me To The Craft Of Writing Is Character, It's Story, It's Something That Becomes Like A Pebble In My Shoe, A Voice That I Just Can't Get Rid Of, And I've Got To See It Through.

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.

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.

The Past Held Only This Wisdom: That Love Was A Damaging Mistake, And Its Accomplice, Hope, A Treacherous Illusion

You Don't Order Someone To Polish Your Shoes One Day And Call Them 'sister' The Next.

One Could Not Count The Moons That Shimmer On Her Roofs, Or The Thousand Splendid Suns That Hide Behind Her Walls.

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

A Society Has No Chance Of Success If Its Women Are Uneducated.

You Changed The Subject." "from What?" "the Empty-headed Girls Who Think You're Sexy." "you Know." "know What?" "that I Only Have Eyes For You." Laila Swooned Inside. She Tried To Read His Face But Was Met By A Look That Was Indecipherable: The Cheerful, Cretinous Grin At Odds With The Narrow, Half Desperate Look In His Eyes. A Clever Look, Calculated To Fall Precisely At The Midpoint Between Mockery And Sincerity

I Think That To Fully Appreciate Baseball, It Helps To Have Been Born In The U.s.

I'm A Pretty Uncomplicated Person. I Live A Very Simple Life With My Family And I Enjoy Very Ordinary Things.

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.

Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot.

If There's A God Out There, Then I Would Hope He Has More Important Things To Attend To Than My Drinking Scotch Or Eating Pork.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Stubborn Ass Needs A Stubborn Driver

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

Nothing To Lose

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

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 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 Is A Heartbreaking Sound, Amir Jan, The Wailing Of A Mother. I Pray To Allah You Never Hear It.

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

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

For A Novelist, It’s Kind Of An Onerous Burden To Represent An Entire Culture. That Said, I’m In A Unique Position To Speak On Behalf Of Afghanistan On Certain Issues That I Feel Are Important, Particularly The Issue Of Afghan Refugees.

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

I Brought Hassan’s Son From Afghanistan To America, Lifting Him From The Certainty Of Turmoil And Dropping Him In A Turmoil Of Uncertainty

I Grew Up With Some Kind Of Storytelling Instinct, And When I Write, My Default Setting Is To Find A Story And Then To Tell It. It's The Only Way I Know How To Write.

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.

Don't Be Afraid To Tell The Truth. It's Better To Hurt Someone By Truth Than To Make Them Happy By Lies.

Telling The Truth

Attention Shifted To Him Like Sunflowers Turning To The Sun.

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.

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.

She Would Grab Whatever She Could -a Look , A Whisper , A Moan - To Salvage From Perishing , To Perserve. But Time Is Most Unforgivving Of Fires , And She Couldn't , In The End , Save It All .

The Impact Had Cut Your Upper Lip In Two, He Had Said, Clean Down The Middle. Clean Down The Middle. Like A Harelip.

All My Life, I'd Been Around Men. That Night, I Discovered The Tenderness Of A Woman.

They Say, Find A Purpose In Your Life And Live It. But, Sometimes, It Is Only After You Have Lived That You Recognize Your Life Had A Purpose, And Likely One You Never Had In Mind.

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.

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

The Cities, The Roads, The Countryside, The People I Meet - They All Begin To Blur. I Tell Myself I Am Searching For Something. But More And More, It Feels Like I Am Wandering, Waiting For Something To Happen To Me, Something That Will Change Everything, Something That My Whole Life Has Been Leading Up To.

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.

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