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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.

Khaled Hosseini

Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Fingers Man Oppression Woman
Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Herself Justice Need
Life just doesn’t care about our aspirations, or sadness. It’s often random, and it’s often stupid and it’s often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Aspiration Care Expectation Life Oneself Sad Stupidity
I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Extraordinary Truth Wait
And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Meaning People Talk Thinking Worth
Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Freedom Goodness Love Money Poor Price Suffering Yourself
War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Demand Peace Time War
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Black Decision Fear Hate Himself Live Love Person Problem See White World
I 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 HOSSEINI

End Novel Play Purpose Role Thinking Understand Writing
And that, is the story of our country, one invasion after another Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we’re like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Brave Country Ourselves Pretty Ruin Story Strength
She was the trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Beautiful Herself Power Tea
I 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 HOSSEINI

Change Improvement Internet Invention Joke Laughter Old War
A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Eyes Feeling Gratitude Happiness Hope Tears Trick Water
All good things in life are fragile and easily lost.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Easy Fragile Goodness Life Lost
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Empty Night Place Reality Rise Summer Tears Throat
The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Bloom Fade Flower Live Spring

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Khaled Hosseini Quotes