1. “Life is a train, get on board.”
2. “There is a way to be good again…”
3. “One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.”
4. “Theft is the one unforgivable sin, the one common denominator of all sins. 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. There is no act more wretched then stealing.”
5. “the thing about people who mean everything that say is that why think everyone else does too.”
6. “I lay there drifting, wondering, imagining…”
7. “Ah, a storyteller,” the general said. “Well, people need stories to divert them at difficult times like this.”
8. “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.”
9. “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.”
10. “In the end, the world always wins. That’s just the way of things.”
11. “I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far.”
12. “Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.”
13. “but time can be a greedy thing—sometimes it steals all the details for itself.”
14. “You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.”
15. “Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything – that is how, it is between people who are each other’s first memories.”
16. “The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip.”
17. “When spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time.”
18. “Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.”
19. “Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything.”
20. “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.”
21. “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”
22. “with a thug of a string, i’d cut loose my pain, my longing…”
23. “It is now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.”
24. “Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every sin is a variation of theft.”
25. “After all, life is not a Hindi movie.”
26. “Men are easy,’ he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. ‘A man’s plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand…well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”
27. “I wished I could be alone in my room, with my books, away from these people.”
28. “When guilt leads to good.”
29. “I know that in the end, God will forgive me. He will forgive your father, me, and you too. I hope you can do the same. Forgive your father if you can. Forgive me if you wish. But most important, forgive yourself.”
30. “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
31. “The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts. Such grace, such dignity, such a tragedy.”
32. “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”
33. “People say that eyes are windows to the soul.”
34. “It’s a dangerous business, making promises to kids.”
35. “Some days, I listen to that clock ticking in the hallway. Then I think of all the ticks, all the minutes, all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without you. And I can’t breathe then, like someone’s stepping on my heart. I get so weak. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.”
36. “I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I’d always feared they would.”
37. “God has granted you a special talent. It’s now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.”
38. “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.”
39. “Dostet darum.” I love you. “I love you back,” she said. I could hear the smile in her words. “And be careful.”
40. “Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.”
41. “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.”
42. “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.”
43. “ In this world, there are people who are indeed evil, and sometimes they will remain evil. ”
44. “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.”
45. “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.”
46. “Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
47. “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”
48. “It’s wrong to hurt even bad people. Because they don’t know any better, and because bad people sometimes become good.”
49. “It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”
50. “some stories don’t need telling”
51. “..But time can be a greedy thing- sometimes it steals all the details for itself”
52. “Then he saw me and waved. Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard, and took a picture of me with the school’s clock tower in the background. I smiled for him – in a way, this was his day more than mine. He walked to me, curled his arm around my neck, and gave my brow a single kiss. ‘I am moftakhir, Amir,’ he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look.”
53. “That’s how children deal with terror, they fall asleep.”
54. “Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyielding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn’t a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur.”
55. “Time can be a greedy thing – sometimes it steals the details for itself.”
56. “Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence.”
57. “Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time”
58. “You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.”
59. “I guess some stories do not need telling.”
60. “My body was broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed. Healed at last.”
61. “Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is… God help him.”
62. “Come. There is a way to be good again…”
63. “children s are not the coloring books where you can fill your favorite colors”
64. “Panic. You open your mouth. Open it so wide your jaws creak. You order your lungs to draw air, NOW, you need air, need it NOW. But your airways ignore you. They collapse, tighten, squeeze, and suddenly you’re breaithing through a drinking straw. Your mouth closes and your lips purse and all you can manage is a croak. Your hands wriggle and shake. Somewhere a dam has cracked open and a flood of cold sweat spills, drenches your body. You want to scream. You would if you could. Cut you have to breathe to scream. Panic.”
65. “They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.”
66. “Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended.”
67. “Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.”
68. “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.”
69. “For you, a thousand times over”
70. “You’re gutless. It’s how you were made. And that’s not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you’ve never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is… God help him.”
71. “I’m so afraid. Because I’m so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening…They only let you this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.”
72. “Happiness like this is frightening….they only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something away from you”
73. “And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then he would toy with me, test my integrity.”
74. “I knew it was better to be miserable than rude.”
75. “That’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does.”
76. “Then,mercifully darkness.”
77. “There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.”
78. “Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. 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.”
79. “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.”
80. “We’d each roll to our side of the bed and let our own savior take us away. Soraya’s was sleep. Mine, as always, was a book.”
81. “With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba 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.”
82. “Make morning into a key and throw it into the well, Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. Let the morning sun forget to rise in the east, Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.”
83. “And I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you.”
84. “Some stories don’t need telling.”
85. “There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.”
86. “All my life, I’d been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman.”
87. “I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.”
88. “Well, people need stories to divert them at difficult times like this.”
89. “I don’t know whom or what he was defying. […] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.”
90. “And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.”
91. “There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break. – Amir.”
92. “Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys.”
93. “lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.”
94. “Scars stung but it was a reminder of a beloved season.”
95. “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.”
96. “He knew I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew that I’d betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.”
97. “Blood is a powerful thing, bachem, never forget that.”
98. “it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.”
99. “A person who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”
100. “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.”
101. “who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard.”
102. “For you, a thousand times over.” Then I turned and ran. It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything alright. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. But I’ll take it. With open arms.”
103. “Sad stories make good books”
104. “Blood is a powerful thing”
105. “Awake. And alone with demons of my own.”
106. “I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.”
107. “But I hope you will heed this: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”
108. “I see you’ve confused what you’re learning in school with actual education.”
109. “ But time is really greedy, sometimes he steals all the details without leaving anything. ”
110. “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime, Amir,”
111. “But they were wasting their time. Because Hassan stood with his arms wide open, smiling, waiting for the kite. And may God—if He exists, that is—strike me blind if the kite didn’t just drop into his outstretched arms.”
112. “To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say.”
113. “When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”
114. “. . .there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is variation of theft.”
115. “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.”
116. “A man’s plumbing is like his mind: Simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand…well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”
117. “There is only one sin and that is theft. When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”
118. “I think he loved us equally, but differently.”
119. “And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
120. “There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.”
