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Khaled Hosseini Quotes
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Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist and physician. After graduating from college, he worked as a doctor in California, a predicament that he likened to "an arranged marriage." He has published three novels, most notably his 2003 debut The Kite Runner, all of which are at least partially set in Afghanistan and feature an Afghan as the protagonist. Following the success of The Kite Runner he retired from medicine to write full-time.

Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father worked as a diplomat, and when Hosseini was 11 years old, the family moved to France; four years later, they applied for asylum in the United States, where he later became a citizen. Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2001 at the age of 36, where he "felt like a tourist in [his] own country". In interviews about the experience, he admitted to sometimes feeling survivor's guilt for having been able to leave the country before the Soviet invasion and subsequent wars.

All three of his novels became bestsellers: The Kite Runner spent 101 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, four of them at number one. A Thousand Splendid Suns was a Times Best Seller for 103 weeks, 15 at number one. And the Mountains Echoed debuted near the top of the Times list and remained on it for 33 weeks until January 2014. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. March 1965
Khaled Hosseini photo
Khaled Hosseini: 226   quotes 33   likes

Khaled Hosseini Quotes

“Look at me, Mariam.'
Reluctantly, Mariam did.
Nana said, 'Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Learning , Daughters

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Life , Pain , Happiness

“He says this is war. There is no shame in war. Tell him he's wrong. War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

War , Peace , Time

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Learning

“There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reality

“There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break. - Amir”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner (2003), Ch. 2
Context: Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.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 (11).

People , Time

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini
God , Pain

“He is annoyed with their lack of interest, their blithe ignorance of the arbitrary genetic lottery that has granted them their privileged lives.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Life

“If I ever do get married," Tariq said, "they'll have to make room for three on the wedding stage. Me, the bride, and the guy holding the gun to my head”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Guy , Wedding

“When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "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. Do you see?”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Variant: 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.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)
Context: 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.

Life , Children , Truth , Lie

“What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“I see America has infused you with the optimism that has made her so great”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Optimism

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“For you, a thousand times over." Then I turned and ran. It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything alright. It didn't make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. But I'll take it. With open arms.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Smile , Time

“I guess some stories do not need telling.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“After all, life is not a Hindi movie.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Life

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Time

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reality , Tear , Summer , Night

“Awake. And alone with demons of my own.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Life , Personality

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

People , Dreams , Suffering

“The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts. Such grace, such dignity, such a tragedy.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Variant: The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
Source: The Kite Runner

Spring , Flowers

“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 lips. I ran.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner (2003), P. 391

Children , Smile

“Mariam always held her breath as she watched him go. She held her breath and, in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second that she didn't breathe God would grant her another day with Jalil.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

God

“A person who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Variant: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.
Source: The Kite Runner

Suffering , Personality

“In my experience, men who understand women seem to rarely want to have anything to do with them.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Women , Men , Understanding

“Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.”
“Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Courage

“That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

1
Variant: 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.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Way , Learning , Time , Past

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini

“And I wrote to you, Laila. Volumes.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Tariq
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Rahim Khan, Ch. 3
Variant: Rahim Khan laughed. “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)

Children , Books , Color

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Life , Beauty , Help , Parting

“about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“It always falls on the sober to pay for the sins of the drunk.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Wajma, p. 228
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Hope , Feeling , Gratitude , Happiness

“At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Thinking , Parent