Quotes from Khaled Hosseini

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. Laila thinks of her own life and all that has happened to her, and she is astonished that she too has survived, that she is alive and sitting in this taxi listening to this man's story.

Ik deed een stap achteruit en het enige wat ik zag was regen door de ramen die wel van smeltend zilver leken

she pushing her.

Vi que Farid miraba también, con su mano igualmente amputada colgando a un lado. Me acordé de los hijos de Wahid y... entonces comprendí una cosa: que no abandonaría Afganistán sin encontrar a Sohrab.

But, mostly, Mariam is in Laila's own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.

Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance.

Les yeux sont le miroir de l'âme affirme-t-on. Jamais ce dicton n'a été plus vrai que dans le cas d'Ali, car elle ne pouvait se dévoiler qu'à travers eux.

There are things that have to be taught, others learnt from books; but there are some things that you just have to see and feel.

Il faut se donner un but dans la vie et vivre en conséquence dit-on. Sauf que parfois, c'est seulement après avoir vécu que votre vie se révèle pourvue d'un but et sans doute, un but auquel vous n'avez jamais pensé.

Mais la bataille qui se livrait en lui se lisait sur son visage. Et sa peur aussi. Pas seulement celle qu'il éprouvait pour moi et ce qui risquait de m'arriver à 4500 kilomètres de chez nous. Mais aussi la peur qu'il avait de moi. Sa peur de me perdre. Sa peur devant mon absence, de réduire en pièces son coeur mis à nu et vulnérable si je le décidais, comme un doberman déchiquetant un chaton.

This fragile, trembling little glimpse of how it could have been between us. All it will beget is regret, I tell myself, and what good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

They respected him, you see, because he respected them.

The hallway's walls are covered now with posters, of dinosaurs, cartoon characters, the Buddhas of Bamiyan, and displays of artwork by the orphans. Many of the drawings depict tanks running over huts, men brandishing AK-47s, refugee camp tents, scenes of jihad.

My eyes returned to our suitcases. They made me sad for Baba. 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.

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.

waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under.

I promised myself that I would talk to her before the summer was over, but schools reopened, the leaves reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in, baby leaves sprouted once more, and I still hadn't had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye.

time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq's absence or presence.

There is only one sin. And that is theft . . . When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth.

Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and someone has to take out the garbage. That's what you were doing in Mazar, going door-to-door? Taking out the garbage? - Precisely. In the west, they have an expression for that. They call it ethnic cleansing. - Do they? Ethnic cleansing. I like it. I like the sound of it.

Mammy was soon asleep, leaving Laila with dueling emotions: reassured that Mammy meant to live on, stung that she was not the reason. 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.

Los chicos, comprendió, se planteaban la amistad de la misma forma que el sol: daban por sentada su existencia y disfrutaban de su resplandor, pero nunca lo contemplaban directamente.

Well, people need stories to divert them at difficult times like this.

But Laila knew that her future was no match for her brothers' past. They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate her in death.