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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

Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Boy Direction Enjoyment Friendship See Sun Treat
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Afraid Deep Happiness Loss Preparation Wisdom Yourself
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Life Peace Quiet Silence Tranquility
A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Brave Courage Coward Man Stand Strength Voice
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Creation Fingers Man Oppression Problem Thinking Woman World
Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINI

God Himself Reason Sorrow
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
He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Culture End Home Identity Key Language Legal Room Yourself
Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock.
KHALED HOSSEINI

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

Act Face Hard Person Punishment Simplicity Wait
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Choice Decision Hope Moral Oneself People Right Yourself
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

English Existence Learning Word
And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Confidence Hope Inspirational Knowledge Motivational Myself Win Wisdom
I’ve read that if an avalanche buries you and you’re lying there underneath all that snow, you can’t tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Bury Lying Reading Wrong Yourself
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Life Peace Quiet Silence Tranquility
But it is important to know this, to know your roots. To know where you started as a person. If not, your own life seems unreal to you. Like a puzzle. Vous comprenez? Like you have missed the beginning of a story and now you are in the middle of it, trying to understand.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Beginning Important Life Missing Person Reality Start Story Try Understand Yourself
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Goodness Kindness Myself Old Person Regret Thinking
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.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Deep Life Live Mindset Past Purpose Recognition Yourself
It 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 HOSSEINI

Choice Freedom Kind Love Small Stay Yourself
But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Charm Deep Thinking Time Wisdom Yourself
Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Book Children Color Deep Parents Teaching Yourself
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
Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINI

God Himself Reason Sorrow
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Count Herself Hide Love Moon Sun Wall Woman
But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Charm Deep Thinking Time Wisdom Yourself
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
I 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 HOSSEINI

Bone Cruelty Dreams Hope Learning Mad Skin World

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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