Quotes by Khaled Hosseini

There is only one sin, only one, and that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wifes right of a husband, you rob his children of a father. When you lie you steal someones right to truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no more wretched act than stealing. A man who takes what is not his to take, be it life or a loaf of naan, I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him.

war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the looting and raping and killing.

she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back.She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother.

... there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.

Every sinner must be punished in a manner befitting his sin!

He thought about his long life and gave thanks for all the bounty and joy that he had been given. To want more, to wish for yet more, he knew, would be petty. He sighed happily, and listened to the wind sweeping down from the mountains, to the chirping of night birds.

Stories close the gap and reconcile between what we want life to be and how it actually is.

Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.

It would be an existence rife with difficulties... but of a pleasurable kind, difficulties they could take pride in, possess, value, as one would a family heirloom.

Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became one, you died one.

I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made. Decency was but one. 

Youve turned out good.Youve made me proud, Markos.I am fifty-five years old. I have waited all my life to hear those words. Is it too late now for this? For us? Have we squandered too much for too long? Part of me thinks it is better to go on as we have, to act as though we dont know how ill suited we have been for each other. Less painful that way. Perhaps better than this belated offering. This fragile, trembling little glimpse of how it could have been between us. All it will beget is regret, I tell myself, and what good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.

Mammys heart was like a pallid beach where Lailas footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed.

Then I think of all the tricks, all the minutes all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I cant breathe then, like someones stepping on my heart, Laila. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.

She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than i did the sun for shining on me.

To see her, amid all of it. To see that contentment and beauty were not unattainable things.

She thought of Azizas stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.

When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mothers grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety. What a scene youre making, Laila would say, releasing her to crawl toward Mariam. What a scene! Calm down. Khala Mariam isnt going anywhere. There she is, your aunt. See? Go on, now. As soon as she was in Mariams arms, Azizas thumb shot into her mouth and she buried her face in Mariams neck. Mariam bounced her stiffly, a half-bewildered, half-grateful smile on her lips. Mariam had never before been wanted like this. Love had never been declared to her so guilelessly, so unreservedly.Aziza made Mariam want to weep.Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me? Mariam would murmur into Azizas hair. Huh? I am nobody, dont you see? A dehati. What have I got to give you?But Aziza only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marvelled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections.

Her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the barrel pointed at her own head.