Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINIBehind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINII 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.
KHALED HOSSEINIThe 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.
KHALED HOSSEINIAfghanistan has always been sort of a fractured nation, very tribal, where the countryside and the distant provinces have been run by custom, by tribal law and by tribal leaders rather than edicts from the central government in Kabul.
KHALED HOSSEINII finally had what I’d wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, i felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.
KHALED HOSSEINIIn 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.
KHALED HOSSEINIBoys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.
KHALED HOSSEINII learned that the world didn’t see the inside of you, that it didn’t care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.
KHALED HOSSEINIA man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed. It won’t stretch to make room for you.
KHALED HOSSEINII laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.
KHALED HOSSEINITime can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.
KHALED HOSSEINII think novelists, when they write their books, end up having occasionally serving a purpose and playing roles that they never really fully either intended or even understood.
KHALED HOSSEININothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.
KHALED HOSSEINIA sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.
KHALED HOSSEINIIt was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself.
KHALED HOSSEINIShe was the trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.
KHALED HOSSEINI