If there was a God, he'd guide the winds, let them blow for me so that, with a tug of my string, I'd cut loose my pain, my longing.

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.

All stories I write are compulsive. Anything I’ve ever written was because I don’t have a choice. I write stories because I can’t wait to tell it, I can’t wait to see how it ends.

The [George W.] Bush administration tripled its aid package to Afghanistan. [Hamid] Karzai finally (and courageously) announced that warlords will be forbidden from holding office in the future government. And finally, NATO agreed to expand the peacekeeping forces to troubled areas outside of Kabul.

Air grew heavy, damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks.

The bulk of our efforts [in The Khaled Hosseini Foundation] has focused on helping build permanent shelters for returning refugees who are homeless, living out in the open or in makeshift homes. This is an area of urgent need as Afghanistan's natural elements are quite harsh, with very hot summers, and freezing winters.

she held her breath, and in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second she didn’t breathe, God would grant her another day