Khaled Hosseini Quotes

Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

The cities, the roads, the countryside, the people I meet - they all begin to blur. I tell myself I am searching for something. But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to.

hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

She said, 'I'm so afraid.' And I said, 'why?,' and she said, 'Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, 'They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.

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

J’aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. 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.

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

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

No matter where we're born, which countries we're raised in, what cultures we come from, there are some universal experiences we all have as children. We all kind of start the same. We want the love of our parents, companionship, friends, we want to have fun, to play, and we're all hurt the first time we learn that the world is far from perfect place - it's the start of a series of epiphanies and realizations that is what growing up is all about.

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.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

We stayed huddled that way until the early hours of the morning. The shootings and explosions had lasted less than an hour, but they had frightened us badly, because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. They were foreign sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born.

It's a funny thing... but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.

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

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.

it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.

When I was in Afghanistan in 2007, I went from village to village where refugees had returned, and they were living out in the open under tents, sometimes completely exposed to the environment. And they were homeless, which meant they would lose children in the winter to the cold and in the summers in the extreme heat. It's extremely humiliating for them to be homeless, culturally it's very shameful.

They say, 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.

For you, a thousand times over

Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything

Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then he said a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'd kill with it for you, Laila.

Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.

Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.

True redemption is...when guilt leads to good.

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.

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated.

Whether you do something or decide to do nothing, either way, you are making a moral choice. And I hope people make the right one.

Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world.

‎I know you're still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over 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.

Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.

You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.

There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.

When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.

People say that eyes are windows to the soul.

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.

There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.

Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.

If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.

Marriage can wait, education cannot.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

The Taliban's acts of cultural vandalism - the most infamous being the destruction of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas - had a devastating effect on Afghan culture and the artistic scene. The Taliban burned countless films, VCRs, music tapes, books, and paintings. They jailed filmmakers, musicians, painters, and sculptors.

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.