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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.

-Khaled Hosseini

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No Matter Where We're

Khaled Hosseini

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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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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 Thought Of Aziza's Stutter, And Of What Aziza Had Said Earlier About Fractures And Powerful Collisions Deep Down And How Sometimes All We See On The Surface Is A Slight Tremor.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Zindagi Migzara (life Goes On)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

People Say That Eyes Are Windows To The Soul.

Window To The Soul

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

After All, Life Is Not A Hindi Movie.

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

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

The Desert Weed Lives On, But The Flower Of Spring Blooms And Wilts.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Writing For Me Is Largely About Rewriting.

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

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 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.

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

I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

Blood Is A Powerful Thing

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.

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

Emotional Connection

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.

Yes, Hope Is A Strange Thing. Peace At Last. But At What Price?

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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 Will Follow You To The Ends Of The World.

But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Nothing To Lose

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Boy Who Won't Stand Up For Himself Becomes A Man Who Can't Stand Up To Anything.

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].

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Sad Stories Make Good Books

I May Not Agree With All Or Even Most Of The Tribal Traditions, But It Seems Ti Me That, Out There, People Live More Authentic Lives. They Have A Sturdiness About Them. A Refreshing Humility. Hospitality Too. And Resilience. A Sense Of Pride.

Cruelty And Benevolence Are But Shades Of The Same Colour.

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.

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.

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.

Life Is A Train, Get On Board.

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

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

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

I Think He Loved Us Equally, But Differently.

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.

Your Job Today Is To Pass Gas. You Do That And We Can Start Feeding You Liquids. No Fart, No Food.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

[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.

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

Human Connection

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Some Stories Don't Need Telling

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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 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 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.

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 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.

Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life.

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.

I Have Been A Fan Of Comic Books Since Childhood.

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

Her Beauty Was The Talk Of The Valley.it Skipped Two Generations Of Women In Our Family, But It Sure Didn't Bypass You, Laila.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If You Connect Emotionally With The Plight Of Those Characters, Ou Feel What They Feel And You Walk Away With A Sense Of Understanding And Empathy, And Hopefully, Something Has Been Illuminated For You. And I Tink That's What Happendd For A Lot Of Readers With My Novels.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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