A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.
KHALED HOSSEINIA sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.
KHALED HOSSEINIOf all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.
KHALED HOSSEININot a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything
KHALED HOSSEINIYou can not stop you from being who you are.
KHALED HOSSEINIBehind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINIWriting fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.
KHALED HOSSEINIQuiet 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 HOSSEINIBut 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 HOSSEINII have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person’s heart.
KHALED HOSSEINIYou see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.
KHALED HOSSEINIShe 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 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 HOSSEINIBut then it passed, as all things do.
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 HOSSEINIAt last, she makes her choice. She turns around, drops her head, and walks toward a horizon she cannot see. After that, she does not look back anymore. She knows that if she does, she will weaken.
KHALED HOSSEINIPerhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.
KHALED HOSSEINI