You don't order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them 'sister' the next.

Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you.

It's wrong to hurt even bad people. Because they don't know any better, and because bad people sometimes become good.

If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of thy son. And thous didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting.

Even after The Kite Runner was published I continued to practice for another eighteen months. But I had always had a love of writing and a compulsion to do it.

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history.

What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.