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It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.

Khaled Hosseini

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
It’s tremendous what can happen when suddenly you make an emotional connection.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Connection Emotional Tremendous
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
Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Action Deep Heart Punishment Understand
You 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 HOSSEINI

Books Feeling Learning See Teaching Yourself
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
A 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 HOSSEINI

Bleed Heart Man Mom Room Yourself
For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Courage Loss Myself Strength
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
Behind every trial and sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.
KHALED HOSSEINI

God Himself Reason Sorrow
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
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
Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Action Life Ourselves Time Understand
It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.
KHALED HOSSEINI

Hurt Lose Place Wisdom
I 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 HOSSEINI

Charity Heart Humility Judgement Live Person See Time Well
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

It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.

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It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of. What they don’t want.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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