Quotes from Khaled Hosseini

Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.

He thought about his long life and gave thanks for all the bounty and joy that he had been given. To want more, to wish for yet more, he knew, would be petty. He sighed happily, and listened to the wind sweeping down from the mountains, to the chirping of night birds.

Änd the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion.

c'est une erreur d'affirmer qu'on peut enterrer le passé, il s'accroche tant et si bien qu'il remonte toujours à la surface.

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.

war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the looting and raping and killing.

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.

He used to wonder how such a frail little body could house so much joy, so much goodness. It couldn't. It spilled out of her, came pouring out her eyes.

It always hurts more to have and loose than not to have in first place

How glorious it was to know that her love for it already dwarfed anything she had ever felt as a human being

To je bilo davno, ali ljudi griješe kada kažu da prošlost može da se pokopa.

He's a boy, you see, and, as such, what does he care about reputation? But you? The reputation of a girl, especially one as pretty as you, is a delicate thing, Laila. Like a mynah bird in your hands. Slacken your grip and away it flies. Fariba to her daughter Laila

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.

For you, a thousand times over (Bareh tu hazar dafa)

It hurts to say that," he said, shrugging. "But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

could not picture that Father had once swung on a swing. He could not imagine that Father had once been a boy, like him. A boy. Carefree, light on his feet. Running headlong into the open fields with his playmates. Father, whose hands were scarred, whose face was crosshatched with deep lines of weariness. Father, who might as well have been born with shovel in hand and mud under his nails.

Sebenarnya aku berusaha menjadi pengecut karena pilihan lainnya, alasan sebenarnya aku melarikan diri, adalah karena Assef mengatakan kebenaran: Tak ada yang gratis di dunia ini.

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.

Mungkin ini tidak adil, tapi sesuatu yang terjadi dalam beberapa hari, kadang-kadang bahkan dalam sehari, bisa mengubah keseluruhan jalan hidup seseorang.

I foresaw my life unfolding as an interminable stretch of nothingness and so I spent my years on Tinos floundering, feeling like a stand-in for myself, a proxy, as though my real self resided elsewhere, waiting to unite someday with this dimmer, more hollow self. I felt marooned. An exile in my own home

Other Afghans from American, or from Europe, Amra says, they come and take picture of her. They take video. They make promises. Then they go home and show their families. LIke she is zoo animal. I allow it because I think maybe they will help. But they forget. I never hear from them.

I lay there drifting, wondering, imagining...

time can be a greedy thing—sometimes it steals all the details for itself.

The kinship I felt suddenly for the old land . . . it surprised me . . . I thought I had forgotten about this land. But I hadn't. . . . Maybe Afghanistan hadn't forgotten me either.