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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.

-Khaled Hosseini

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I Want To Tear

Khaled Hosseini

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

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

Quiet Is Peace. Tranquility. Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life. Silence Is Pushing The Off Button. Shutting It Down. All Of It.

Writing For Me Is Largely About Rewriting.

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.

You Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

Though There Were Moments Of Beauty, Mariam Knew For The Most Part That Life Had Been Unkind To Her.

When I Went To Afghanistan In 2003, I Walked Into A War Zone. Entire Neighborhoods Had Been Demolished. There Were An Overwhelming Number Of Widows And Orphans And People Who Had Been Physically And Emotionally Damaged; Every 10-year-old Kid On The Street Knew How To Dismantle A Kalashnikov In Under A Minute. I Would Flip Through Math Textbooks Intended For Third Grade, Fourth Grade, And They Would Include Word Problems Such As, "if You Have 100 Grenades And 20 Mujahideen, How Many Grenades Per Mujahideen Do You Get?" War Has Infiltrated Every Facet Of Life.

Human Behavior Is Messy And Unpredictable And Unconcerned With Convenient Symmetries.

‎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.

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.

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 .

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

There Was So Much Goodness In My Life. So Much Happiness. I Wondered Whether I Deserved Any Of It.

Though The Kite Runner Was My First Completed Novel, I Had Been Writing On And Off For Most Of My Life, Primarily Short Stories, And Primarily For Myself.

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.

I Returned To Kabul After A 27-year Absence. I Came Away With Some Optimism But Not As Much As I Had Hoped For. The Two Major Issues In Afghanistan Are A Lack Of Security Outside Kabul (particularly In The South And East) And The Powerful Warlords Ruling Over The Provinces With Little Or No Allegiance To The Central Government. The Other Rapidly Rising Concern Is The Narcotic Trade Which, If Not Dealt With, May Turn Afghanistan Into Another Bolivia Or Colombia.

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.

You Have These Crops Of Poppies That Supply Something Like 90% Of The Heroin Sold In Europe And Actually Represents More Than Half Of The Afghanistan's Gdp.

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.

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

I’m All You Have In This World Mariam, And When I’m Gone You’ll Have Nothing. You Are Nothing!

Attention Shifted To Him Like Sunflowers Turning To The Sun.

I Don't Know Whom Or What He Was Defying. [...] [m]aybe The God He Had Never Believed In.

The Story Line Of My Novel [the Kite Runner] Is Largely Fictional. The Characters Were Invented And The Plot Imagined.

Kabul Was A Thriving Cosmopolitan City With Its Vibrant Artistic, Intellectual And Cultural Life. There Were Poets, Musicians, And Writers. There Was Also An Influx Of Western Culture, Art, And Literature In The '60s And '70s.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

The Chinese Say It's Better To Be Deprived Of Food For Three Days Than Tea For One.

The Kite Runner Is A Story Of Two Boys And A Father, And The Strange Love Triangle That Binds Them.

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.

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

Perhaps This Is Just Punishment For Those Who Have Been Heartless, To Understand Only When Nothing Can Be Undone.

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.

The Truth Is That No One Who Hasn't Actually Experienced The Senseless Chaos And Violence Of Combat Can Possibly Understand It, But Those Who Have And Who Try To Explain It To The Rest Of Us Are Offering Us A Precious Gift: A Part Of Their Soul That's Been Scorched In The Flames Of Hell. It's A Little Like Trying To Describe Music To The Deaf Or Color To The Blind ... To Make The Irrational Somewhat Sensible, Which Is Always Confusing And Frustrating, And Ultimately Futile.

I Started A Foundation, Called The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The Mission Has Been To Help The Most Vulnerable Groups In Afghanistan. So The Focus Has Been On Women, Children, And Homeless Refugees, Most Of Whom Are In Fact Women And Children.

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

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.

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

[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.

I Think The Scale Of The Conflict [in Afghanistan] Has Dramatically Changed In 2003. You're Now Facing A Much More Motivated, Well-supported Enemy. I Don't See Any Quick End To This Thing.

People Say That Eyes Are Windows To The Soul.

Window To The Soul

I Did See [in Afghanistan] Plenty That Reminded Me Of My Childhood. I Recognised My Old Neighbourhood, Saw My Old School, Streets Where I Had Played With My Brother And Cousins.

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.

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

It Is Now Your Duty To Hone That Talent, Because A Person Who Wastes His God-given Talents Is A Donkey.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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].

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.

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.

The Country [afghanistan] Faces Enormous Problems. There Is A Violent Insurgency Hampering The Rule Of Law And Developmental Efforts.

I Wished I Could Be Alone In My Room, With My Books, Away From These People.

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

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

She Said, 'i'm So Afraid.' And I Said, 'why?,' And She Said, 'because I'm So Profoundly Happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness Like This Is Frightening.' I Asked Her Why And She Said, 'they Only Let You Be This Happy If They're Preparing To Take Something From You.

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.

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.

But Laila Has Decided That She Will Not Be Crippled By Resentment. Mariam Wouldn’t Want It That Way. ‘what’s The Sense?’ She Would Say With A Smile Both Innocent And Wise. ‘what Good Is It, Laila Jo?’ And So Laila Has Resigned Herself To Moving On. For Her Own Sake, For Tariq’s, For Her Children’s. And For Mariam, Who Still Visits Laila In Her Dreams, Who Is Never More Than A Breath Or Two Below Her Consciousness. Laila Has Moved On. Because In The End She Knows That’s All She Can Do. That And Hope.

It Was Only A Smile, Nothing More. It Didn't Make Everything All Right. It Didn't Make Anything All Right. Only A Smile. A Tiny Thing. A Leaf In The Woods, Shaking In The Wake Of A Startled Bird's Flight. But I'll Take It. With Open Arms. Because When Spring Comes, It Melts The Snow One Flake At A Time, And Maybe I Just Witnessed The First Flake Melting. - Amir

[flying Kite With My Friends] Is One Of The Seminal Memories Of Growing Up For Me.

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.

You See, Some Things I Can Teach You. Some You Learn From Books. But There Are Things That, Well, You Have To See And Feel.

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

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 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.

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

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.

You Are Never Alone In Afghanistan. You Are Always In The Company Of Others, Usually Family. You Don't Understand Yourself Really As An Individual, You Understand Yourself As Part Of Something Bigger Than Yourself. Family Is So Central To Your Identity, To How You Make Sense Of Your World, It Is Very Dramatic, And Therefore An Amazing Source Of Storytelling, A Source Of Fiction For Me.

She Passed These Years In A Distant Corner Of Her Mind. A Dry, Barren Field, Out Beyond Wish And Lament, Beyond Dream And Disillusionment. There, The Future Did Not Matter. And The Past Held Only This Wisdom: That Love Was A Damaging Mistake, And It Accomplice, Hope, A Treacherous Illusion.

I Found A Sad Little Fairy Beneath The Shade Of A Paper Tree. I Know A Sad Little Fairy Who Was Blown Away By The Wind One Night.

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

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.

I Will Say That There Is An Inordinate Amount Of Medicine In My Novels, Especially The First One. There Are A Lot Of Medical Things That Happen. A Hip Fracture, Three Different Kinds Of Lung Cancer, Pneumonia, Blood Poisoning, And So On.

I Don't Listen To Music When I Write - I Find It Distracting.

Listening To Music

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.

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.

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

If Thou Art Indeed My Father, Then Hast Thou Stained Thy Sword In The Life-blood Of Thy Son. And Thous Didst It Of Thine Obstinacy. For I Sought To Turn Thee Unto Love, And I Implored Of Thee Thy Name, For I Thought To Behold In Thee The Tokens Recounted Of My Mother. But I Appealed Unto Thy Heart In Vain, And Now Is The Time Gone For Meeting.

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.

Blood Is A Powerful Thing

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Hills That Stand Soft And A Sky That Stands High And Blue, And The Sun Setting Behind A Windmill, And Always, Always, Hazy Strings Of Mountains That Fall And Fall Away On The Horizon.

In March Of 2001, I Revisited The Short Story, And Found That Thought It Did Not Work Well As A Short Story, It Might Work Much Better As A Longer One. The Novel [the Kite Runner] Came About As An Expansion Of That Original, Unpublished Short Story.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Hassan And I Looked At Each Other. Cracked Up. The Hindi Kid Would Soon Learn What The British Learned Earlier In The Century, And What The Russians Would Eventually Learn By The Late 1980's: That Afghans Are An Independent People. Afghans Cherish Customs But Abhor Rules. And So It Was With Kite Fighting. The Rules Were Simple: No Rules. Fly Your Kite. Cut The Opponents. Good Luck.

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

Lost Everything

Children Aren't Coloring Books. You Don't Get To Fill Them With Your Favorite Colors.

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.

I Feel Like We [americans] Are A Unique Nation In This World, In That We Are Able To Implement Great Change In Our Society Over A Relatively Short Period Of Time. What Takes Centuries In Europe, We Accomplish In A Generation.

These Random Unkind Moment That Catch You Wen You Least Expect Them.

Creating Means Vandalizing The Lives Of Other People, Turning Them Into Unwilling And Unwitting Participants. You Steal Their Desires, Their Dreams, Pocket Their Flaws, Their Suffering. You Take What Does Not Belong To You. You Do This Knowingly.

I Want To Give Up My Bearings, Slip Out Of Who I Am, Shed Everything, The Way A Snake Discards Old Skin.

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.

A Story Is Like A Moving Train: No Matter Where You Hop Onboard, You Are Bound To Reach Your Destination Sooner Or Later.

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

In 2004, I Took A One Year Sabbatical To Finish My Second Novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. At The End Of That Year, I Was Not Done With My Book, And Had To In Effect Resign From Work. I Did. I Never Went Back.

Behind Every Trial And Sorrow That He Makes Us Shoulder, God Has A Reason.

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.

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

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.

People Learned To Live With The Most Unimaginable Things.

I Believe Fabio Celoni's Work Vividly Brings To Life Not Only The Mountains, The Bazaars, The City Of Kabul And Its Kite-dotted Skies, But Also The Many Struggles, Conflicts, And Emotional Highs And Lows Of Amir's Journey [from The The Kite Runner].

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

My Father And I Did Work For A While At The Flea Market And There Really Are Rows Of Afghans Working There, Some Of Whom I Am Related To.

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

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

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.

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

Gone. Vanished. Nothing Left. Nothing Said.

At Least, It Is Encouraging To Me That President [barack] Obama Has Put Afghanistan Front And Center In This Broader So-called War On Terror, And That He Is Taking A Different Approach To Afghanistan.

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

A Pathetic Shadow, Torn Between Her Envy And Thrill Of Being Seen With Masomma, Sharing In The Attention As A Weed Would, Lapping Up Water Meant For The Lily Upstream.

My Own Background Is Fairly Liberal And So This Notion Of 'protecting Women From Outside Intrusion' Is Not In My Nature, Nor In My Upbringing.

Time Can Be A Greedy Thing-sometimes It Steals The Details For Itself.

People…shouldn’t Be Allowed To Have New Children If They’d Already Given Away All Their Love To Their Old Ones. It Wasn’t Fair.

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.

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

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.

And This Is What I Want You To Understand, That Good, Real Good, Was Born Out Of Your Father's Remorse. Sometimes, I Thing Everything He Did, Feeding The Poor On The Streets, Building The Orphanage, Giving Money To Friends In Need, It Was All His Way Of Redeeming Himself. And That, I Believe, Is What True Redemption Is, Amir Jan, When Guilt Leads To Good.

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.

Of All The Hardships A Person Had To Face, None Was More Punishing Than The Simple Act Of Waiting.

We Stayed Huddled That Way Until The Early Hours Of The Morning. The Shootings And Explosions Had Lasted Less Than An Hour, But They Had Frightened Us Badly, Because None Of Us Had Ever Heard Gunshots In The Streets. They Were Foreign Sounds To Us Then. The Generation Of Afghan Children Whose Ears Would Know Nothing But The Sounds Of Bombs And Gunfire Was Not Yet Born.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

People In The Countryside Carry A Sense Of Dignity. They Wear It, Don't They? Like A Badge? I'm Being Genuine.

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.

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.

I Foresaw My Life Unfolding As An Interminable Stretch Of Nothingness And So I Spent My Years On Tinos Floundering, Feeling Like A Stand-in For Myself, A Proxy, As Though My Real Self Resided Elsewhere, Waiting To Unite Someday With This Dimmer, More Hollow Self. I Felt Marooned. An Exile In My Own Home

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.

Joseph Shall Return To Canaan, Grieve Not, Hovels Shall Turn To Rose Gardens, Grieve Not. If A Flood Should Arrive, To Drown All That's Alive, Noah Is Your Guide In The Typhoon's Eye, Grieve Not.

Zindagi Migzara (life Goes On)

And That, ...is The Story Of Our Country, One Invasion After Another...macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now The Soviets. But We're Like Those Walls Up There. Battered, And Nothing Pretty To Look At, But Still Standing.

That's How Children Deal With Terror, They Fall Asleep.

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.

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

Nothing To Lose

I See America Has Infused You With The Optimism That Has Made Her So Great

Hassan Couldn't Read A First-grade Textbook But He'd Read Me Plenty. That Was A Little Unsettling But Also Sort Of Comfortable To Have Someone Who Always Knew What You Needed.

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

A Man Who Has No Conscience, No Goodness, Does Not Suffer.

For You, A Thousand Times Over

Regret... When It Comes To You, I Have Oceans Of It.

It Always Hurts More To Have And Lose Than To Not Have In The First Place.

But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

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

A Stubborn Ass Needs A Stubborn Driver

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.

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.

It Was You Nabi. It Was Always You. Didn't You Know?

I Was Good At Being A Doctor; My Patients Liked Me. At Times People Trust You With Things They Wouldn't Tell Their Spouses. It Was A Real Privilege.

But It Is Important To Know This, To Know Your Roots. To Know Where You Started As A Person. If Not, Your Own Life Seems Unreal To You. Like A Puzzle. Vous Comprenez? Like You Have Missed The Beginning Of A Story And Now You Are In The Middle Of It, Trying To Understand.

The Images [of The Kite Runner Grafic] Were Created In Fabio Celoni's Mind. I Chose To Let Him Take The Lead. Fabio And I Did Exchange An E-mail Or Two, But It Was My Intention To Step Out Of The Way And Let His Artistic Instincts Take Over.

There Is A Way To Be Good Again.

It's Tremendous What Can Happen When Suddenly You Make An Emotional Connection.

Emotional Connection

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

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.

There Is An Energy, A Romance In Writing The First Novel That Can Never Be Duplicated Again. I Was Entirely Absorbed In That World As I Wrote The Book [the Kite Runner] And To See The Final Page Of That Manuscript Whir Out Of The Printer Was A Very Special Feeling Indeed.

If You Were The Poor, Suffering Was Your Currency.

I Think He Loved Us Equally, But Differently.

Perspective [is] A Luxury When Your Head [is] Constantly Buzzing With A Swarm Of Demons.

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.

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

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.

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