WisdomArea — Wisdom & Inspiration

"I sat against one of the house’s clay walls. The kinship I felt suddenly for the old land... it surprised me. I’d been gone long enough to forget and be forgotten. I had a home in a land that might as well be in another galaxy to the people sleeping on the other side of the wall I leaned against. I thought I had forgotten about this land. But I hadn’t. And, under the bony glow of a halfmoon, I sensed Afghanistanhumming under my feet. Maybe Afghanistan hadn’t forgotten me either. I looked westward and marveled that, somewhere over those mountains, Kabul still existed. It really existed, not just as an old memory, or as the heading of an AP story on page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Somewhere over those mountains in the west slept the city where my harelipped brother and I had run kites. Somewhere over there, the blindfolded man from my dream had died a needless death. Once, over those mountains, I had made a choice. And now, a quarter of a century later, that choice had landed me right back on this soil."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. 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. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"I finally had what I'd wantes all those years. Except now that I had it, i felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"When you kill a man, You steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, Rob his children of a father."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"about clichés. Avoid them like the plague."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"He knew I betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir"

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"Exploitation to finance a beach house in Hawaii was one thing. Doing it to feed your kids was another."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"Every sinner must be punished in a manner befitting his sin!"

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"... there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"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."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"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, The Kite Runner

"That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms."

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

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