Khaled Hosseini

“it is a heartBreaking sound, Amir Jan, the Wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you Never hear it.”

“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.”

“A Western-style democracy in Afghanistan is a dream. I don't see that as a reality anytime soon. But I think some form of representative political process is not that far-fetched.”

“The jury is out as to whether the Afghans are up to the task of protecting their people.”

“A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about clichés: 'Avoid them like the plague.' Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along with him, but I always thought clichés got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead-on. But the aptness of the clichéd saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as a cliché.”

“Every sinner must be punished in a manner befitting his sin!”

“For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture.”

“I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.”

“Stories close the gap and reconcile between what we want life to be and how it actually is.”

“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.”

“Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres.”

“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.”

“My parents were reasonably affluent in Kabul. In the States, we were on welfare. My mom became a waitress, and my dad became a driving instructor. That part of the American immigrant experience applies to people of any nationality.”

“Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.”

“Afghanistan is doomed if women are barred once again from public life.”

“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.”

“Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.”

“There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft... 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.”

“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 don't know if you have children of your own, Mariamjo, but if you do I pray that God look after them and spare you the grief that I have known. I still dream of them. I still dream of my dead children.I have dreams of you too, Mariam jo. I miss you. I miss the sound of your voice, your laughter. I miss reading to you, and all those times we fished together. Do you remember all those times we fished together? You were a good daughter, Mariam jo, and I cannot ever think of you without feeling shame and regret. Regret… When it comes to you, Mariamjo, I have oceans of it. I regret that I did not see you the day you came to Herat. I regret that I did not open the door and take you in. I regret that I did not make you a daughter to me, that l let you live in that place for all those years. And for what? Fear of losing face? Of staining my so called good name? How little those things matter to me now after all the loss, all the terrible things I have seen in this cursed war. But now, of course, it is too late. Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone. Now all I can do is say that you were a good daughter, Mariamjo, and that I never deserved you. Now all I can do is ask for your forgiveness. So forgive me, Mariamjo. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.”