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.
KHALED HOSSEINIWhen 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.
KHALED HOSSEINIBehind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINIIt’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.
KHALED HOSSEINIYou can not stop you from being who you are.
KHALED HOSSEINII’m gladly doing my own thing for the time being.
KHALED HOSSEINIA boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
KHALED HOSSEINIOne could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.
KHALED HOSSEINII 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 HOSSEINIHer impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock.
KHALED HOSSEINIHe 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 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 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 HOSSEINIBut time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.
KHALED HOSSEINII’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 HOSSEINIChildren aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.
KHALED HOSSEINIOne could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.
KHALED HOSSEINI