913 Quotes by Khaled Hosseini

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 .

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don’t either of you ask me for more.

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 of a husband, you rob his children of a father. When you lie you steal someone’s right to truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no more wretched act than stealing. A man who takes what is not his to take, be it life or a loaf of naan, I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him.

The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. 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.

I laughed. Clutched him in a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. “What was that for?” he said; startled, blushing. I gave him a friendly hug, smiled. “You’re a prince, Hassan. You’re a prince and I love you.

A sadness came over me. Returning to Kabul was like running into an old, forgotten friend and seeing that life hadn’t been good to him, that he’d become homeless and destitute.

I welcome you to my home as my son, as the husband of my daughter who is the noor of my eye. Your pain will be our pain, your joy our joy. I hope that you will come to see your Khala and Jamila and me as a second set of parents, and I pray for your and our lovely Soraya jan’s happiness. you both have our blessings.

Hadn’t we both yearned for escape, reinvention, new identities? Hadn’t we each, in the end unmoored ourselves by cutting loose the anchors that weighed us down?

If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate – sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school.