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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].

-Khaled Hosseini

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I Believe Fabio Celoni's

Khaled Hosseini

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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].

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 So Happens That The Major Relationships In The Novel [the Kite Runner] Are Between Men, Dictated Not By Any Sort Of Prejudice Or Discomfort With Female Characters, But Rather By The Demands Of The Narrative.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Isn't, Even Now, A Great Tradition Of Novel-writing In Afghanistan. Most Of The Literature Is In The Form Of Poetry.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

There Was Brotherhood Between People Who Had Fed From The Same Breast, A Kinship That Even Time Could Not Break. - Amir

If The Story Had Been About Anyone Else, It Would Been Dismissed As Laaf, That Afghan Tendency To Exaggerate ---sadly, Almost A National Affliction; If Someone Bragged That His Son Was A Doctor, Chances Were The Kid Had Once Passed A Biology Test In High School.

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

We [in The Khaled Hosseini Foundation] Support And Fund Projects That Bring Jobs, Healthcare, And Education To Women And Children. In Addition, We Award Scholarships To Women Pursuing Higher Education In Afghanistan.

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.

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.

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

People Say That Eyes Are Windows To The Soul.

Window To The Soul

Usually In Films, When Muslims Pray, It's Either Before Or After They've Blown Something Up.

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.

Blood Is A Powerful Thing

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.

Attention Shifted To Him Like Sunflowers Turning To The Sun.

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.

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

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.

Give Sustenance, Allah. Give Sustenance To Me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Zindagi Migzara (life Goes On)

Kabul Was Very Popular With The Hippies In The Sixties And Seventies. It Was Very Quiet And Peaceful.

Writing For Me Is Largely About Rewriting.

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.

I've Read That If An Avalanche Buries You And You're Lying There Underneath All That Snow, You Can't Tell Which Way Is Up Or Down. You Want To Dig Yourself Out But Pick The Wrong Way, And You Dig Yourself To Your Own Demise.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

It May Be Unfair, But What Happens In A Few Days, Sometimes Even A Single Day, Can Change The Course Of A Whole Lifetime.

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.

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

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.

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

Lost Everything

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

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.

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

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

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

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].

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

You Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

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

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.

Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot.

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

If You Were The Poor, Suffering Was Your Currency.

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

Emotional Connection

There Is A Way To Be Good Again.

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

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

Listening To Music

Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life.

After Everything He'd Built, Planned, Fought For, Fretted Over, Dreamed Of, This Was The Summation Of His Life; One Disappointing Son And Two Suitcases.

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.

Life Is A Train, Get On Board.

Kabul Is... A Thousand Tragedies Per Square Mile.

People Learned To Live With The Most Unimaginable Things.

After All, Life Is Not A Hindi Movie.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

I Think He Loved Us Equally, But Differently.

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

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

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

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.

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 .

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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

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 Will Follow You To The Ends Of The World.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

If Culture Was A House, Then Language Was The Key To The Front Door, [and] To All Rooms Inside.

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

Literature And Film Have A Way Of Lifting You From Your Own Existence And Transporting You To Some Foreign Place And Putting You In The Shoes With An Experience Different Than Your Own.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

When You Have Lived As Long As I Have, The Div Replied, You Find That Cruelty And Benevolence Are But Shades Of The Same Color.

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 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'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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

True Redemption Is...when Guilt Leads To Good.

I Didn't Remember What Month That Was, Or What Year Even. I Only Knew The Memory Lived In Me, A Perfectly Encapsulated Morsel Of A Good Past, A Brushstroke Of Color On The Gray, Barren Canvas That Our Lives Had Become.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

For A Novelist, It's Kind Of An Onerous Burden To Represent An Entire Culture.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 .

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

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.

You've Always Been A Tourist Here. You Just Didn't Know It.

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

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

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.

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.

There Are A Lot Of Children In Afghanistan, But Little Childhood.

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

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.

Fabio Celon Did Send Me Pages As He Progressed, Both In Black And White And Some Color Samples As Well. It Was Really Exciting To See The Sketches And To See The Story [the Kite Runner] Shaping Up Visually.

Black And White

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.

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

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

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

Human Connection

Some Stories Don't Need Telling

I Have This Almost Pathological Fear Of Boring The Reader.

Mostly, Though, I Dream Of Good Things...i Dream That Flowers Will Bloom In The Streets..again And Music Will Play In The...houses And Kites Will Fly In The Skies.

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

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

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)

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.

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

All Good Things In Life Are Fragile And Easily Lost

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.

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

The [george W.] Bush Administration Tripled Its Aid Package To Afghanistan. [hamid] Karzai Finally (and Courageously) Announced That Warlords Will Be Forbidden From Holding Office In The Future Government. And Finally, Nato Agreed To Expand The Peacekeeping Forces To Troubled Areas Outside Of Kabul.

You’re Not Going To Cry, Are You? - I Am Not Going To Cry! Not Over You. Not In A Thousand Years.

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.

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