Quotes from book
A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“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”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“The Chinese say it is better to be deprived of food for three days than tea for one.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Laila, p. 250
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“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)

“A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied butby the turbulence that washes over her.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Each snowflake was a sigh heard by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. 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 women suffer.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“she is theof my eyes and the sultan of my heart.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“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

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing 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

“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

“I will follow you to the ends of the world.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“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

“Laila: Tell your secrets to the wind but don't blame it for telling the trees.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“You can not stop you from being who you are.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated…”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, one invader after another. Macedonians. Sassanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Cab Driver, p. 146
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

“Give sustenance, Allah.
Give sustenance to me.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns

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