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.

-Khaled Hosseini

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There Is An Energy,

Khaled Hosseini

Topic

Book

Writing

Romance

More From Khaled Hosseini

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.

Agency

Years

Events

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

Men

Names

Disease

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.

Character

Men

Female

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.

Years

Legs

Pool

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

People

Brotherhood

Amir

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

Luxury

Perspective

Demon

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

Stories

Kites

Graphic Novels

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.

Mother

Art

Father

Quiet Is Turning Down The Volume Knob On Life.

Shutting Down

Quiet

Tranquility

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

Children

Childhood

Littles

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.

Life

Dream

Mistake

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

Holes

Said

Shovels

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.

Variation

Matter

Sin

I Guess Some Stories Do Not Need Telling.

Needs

Stories

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.

Pain

Cutting

Blow

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.

Men

Mirrors

Married

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

Defying

Knows

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

Winning

World

Way

Gone. Vanished. Nothing Left. Nothing Said.

Gone

Said

Left

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

Hippie

Peaceful

Kabul

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.

Powerful

Rocks

Scary

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.

Writing

Credibility

Aspiring Writers

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)

Girl

Heart

Sound

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.

Writing

Waiting

Choices

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

Love

Moving

People

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.

Running

Art

Memories

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

Tea

Chinese

Three

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.

Thinking

Secret

Mountain

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

Son

America

Hassan

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

Simple

Ordinary

My Family

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

Character

Plot

Stories

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

Islamic

Kites

Sun

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

Punishment

Heartless

Undone

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

People

Kites

Saws

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.

Couple

Betrayal

Regret

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.

Refugee Crisis

Issues

Community

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.

Honor

Burden

Shoulders

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

Robots

Mars

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

Novelists

Culture

Kind

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.

Kindness

Pride

People

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

Guilt

Redemption

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.

Girl

Sexy

Eye

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.

Writing

Thinking

Romance

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.

Father

War

Hero

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.

Two

Mind

Kites

You Say You Felt A Presence, But I Only Sensed An Absence. A Vague Pain Without A Source. I Was Like A Patient Who Cannot Tell The Doctor Where It Hurts, Only That It Does.

Hurt

Pain

Doctors

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.

Shoes

Different

Literature

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

Moving

Catharsis

Goes On

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.

Mother

Hurt

Book

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.

Two

Generations

Valleys

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.

Men

Thinking

World

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.

Wise

Dream

Children

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

Dark

Night

Men

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].

Book

Love Is

Two

President Karzai Is An Incredibly Kind And Decent Man. I Had The Pleasure Of Meeting Him, And He Genuinely Cares For His People. But I Think He Had Too Much Of A Tendency To Want To Rule By Listening To All Voices At All Times.

Men

Thinking

Voice

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

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.

Book

Issues

Racism

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.

Writing

Work Out

Worry

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.

Powerful

Years

Two

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.

Depressing

Spring

People

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

Winning

Matter

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.

People

Conservative

Medieval

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.

Beautiful

Guilt

Battle

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.

Book

Clothes

Decision

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

Keys

Doors

House

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.

Moving

Catharsis

Doe

I Will Follow You To The Ends Of The World.

Cute Love

I Love Him

Romantic Love

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

Women

Accusing Me

Compass

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.

Writing

Successful

Kites

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

Wall

Moon

Sun

There Is A Way To Be Good Again.

Way

Be Good

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

Cutting

Impact

Two

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

America

Office

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.

Jobs

Powerful

War

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

Tourists

Knows

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

Knows

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.

Choices

Kind

Rigor

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

People

Dignity

Genuine

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

Boys

Men

Amir

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 .

Goodbye

Tired

Heart

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.

Jobs

Children

Awards

[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.

Military

War

Gun

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

Inspirational

Life

Hurt

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

People

Redemption

Human Connection

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

Book

Unique

Kites

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.

Fear

Hate

Black And White

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.

Kindness

Book

Writing

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

Another Day

Breathe

Grants

Attention Shifted To Him Like Sunflowers Turning To The Sun.

Sunflower

Attention

Sun

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

Giving

Stories

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

Boys

Radiance

Way

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

Gratitude

Eye

Liquid

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.

Intrusion

Backgrounds

Notion

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

Home

Writing

Editors

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

Fiction

Alive

Periods

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.

Expansion

Stories

Kites

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.

Stupid

Sadness

Receiving

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

Father

Boys

Two

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.

Beach

Brother

Heart

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.

Drinking

Cutting

Air

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

Heart

Humility

Long

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.

Fall

Blue

Sky

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

Mother

Heartbreaking

Sound

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

Years

California

Tasks

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.

Ocean

Feelings

Way

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

Children

Book

Color

Give Sustenance, Allah. Give Sustenance To Me.

Giving

Sustenance

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.

Husband

Son

Wife

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.

Cancer

Pneumonia

Blood

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

Moments

Unkind

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

Behavior

Messy

Unpredictable

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.

Father

Real

Believe

I Have This Almost Pathological Fear Of Boring The Reader.

Boring

Reader

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

Rope

Necks

Flood

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

Thinking

Afghanistan

Emancipation

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.

Mind

Purpose

Sometimes

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

Knees

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

Gone

World

This World

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.

Art

Cities

Intellectual

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.

Tanks

Rolling

Would Be

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.

Mean

Thinking

Years

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.

War

Kids

Math

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.

Faith

Real

Book

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.

Writing

Stories

Way

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

War

Demand

Baba

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.

Dream

Simple

Sorrow

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

Life

May

Sometimes

Life Is A Train, Get On Board.

Boards

Life Is

Train

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.

Mother

Heart

Men

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

Life

Lying

Sin

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

Thinking

Charm

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

Writing

Listening To Music

Manuscripts

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

Hurt

Firsts

Loses

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.

Commitment

Community

Done

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.

School

Kids

Son

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

Book

Lure

Avoided

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

Years

English Words

Doe

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.

Police

Kabul

Poverty

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

Men

Suffering

Doe

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

Children

Foundation

Helping

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.

Writing

Night

Genre Is

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

Lasts

Strange

Strange Things

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

Jobs

Today

Liquid

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.

Pain

Night

Gathering

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

Sad

Sorrow

Trials

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.

Children

Husband

Father

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.

Mouths

Might

Said

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

Regret

Ocean

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

Thinking

Suffering

Groups

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

Emotional

Connections

Emotional Connection

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.

Needs

Stories

Knows

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.

Europe

Gdp

Half

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

Long

Coward

Helping

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.

Boys

Names

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.

Lying

Silence

Wake Up

People Learned To Live With The Most Unimaginable Things.

People

Unimaginable

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.

Pain

Heart

Dark

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.

Sorry

Grief

Loss

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

Girl

Sexy

Clever

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.

Writing

School

College

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.

Wish

Twenties

Finals

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.

Roots

Important

Trying

A Stubborn Ass Needs A Stubborn Driver

Needs

Stubborn

Ass

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.

Summer

Block

Night

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.

Country

Wall

Looks

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.

Summer

Children

Winter

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

Years

Over You

Cry

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.

Drinking

Scotch

Important

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.

Summer

Home

Winter

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.

Lying

Snow

Demise

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

Love You

Suffering

Poor

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.

Children

Giving

Empowering

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.

Thinking

Funny Things

People

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.

Pain

Minutes

Spokes

She Wished She Could Visit Mariam's Grave, To Sit With Her Awhile, Leave A Flower Or Two. But She Sees Now That It Doesn't Matter. Mariam Is Never Very Far.... Mariam Is In Her Own Heart, Where She Shines With The Bursting Radiance Of A Thousand Suns.

Flower

Heart

Two

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

Needs

Injustice

Flocks

If You Were The Poor, Suffering Was Your Currency.

Suffering

Poor

Currency

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.

Fighting

Games

People

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

Book

People

Rooms

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

Giving Up

Who I Am

Snakes

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.

War

People

Peaceful

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.

Powerful

Down And

Sometimes

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.

Children

School

Thinking

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.

Regret

Thinking

Should Have

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.

Thinking

Enemy

Conflict

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.

Gun

Lovely

Denim

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.

Summer

Brother

Party

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.

Son

Two

Suitcases

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

Children

Fall

Terror

Blood Is A Powerful Thing

Powerful

Blood

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.

Book

Years

Sabbatical

You Can Not Stop You From Being Who You Are.

Can Not

Who You Are

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.

Father

Flames

Knives

The Bewildering Success Of My Books Continues To Surprise Me.

Book

Surprise

Surprise Me

Marriage Can Wait, Education Cannot.

Inspirational

Marriage

School

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.

Pain

Liars

Moving

But Then It Passed, As All Things Do.

All Things

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

Waste

Talent

Donkey

Writing For Me Is Largely About Rewriting.

Writing

Rewriting

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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