He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing. He knew that I'd betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.

My family left Afghanistan in 1976, well before the Communist coup and the Soviet invasion. We certainly thought we would be going back. But when we saw those Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, the prospect for return looked very dim. Few of us, I have to say, envisioned that nearly a quarter century of bloodletting would follow.

I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting.

Give sustenance, Allah. Give sustenance to me.

In March of 2001, I revisited the short story, and found that thought it did not work well as a short story, it might work much better as a longer one. The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.

Without women taking an active role in Afghan society, rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be very difficult.

The short of it is, as an aspiring writer, there is nothing as damaging to your credibility as saying that you don't like to read.