Was there happiness at the end [of the movie], they wanted to know. If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends with happiness, I wouldn't know what to say. Does anybody's? After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zendagi migzara, Afghans like to say: Life goes on, undmindful of beginning, en, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis.

Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?

Though The Kite Runner was my first completed novel, I had been writing on and off for most of my life, primarily short stories, and primarily for myself.

Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.” “Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.

Gone. Vanished. Nothing left. Nothing said.

Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.

People…shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if they’d already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn’t fair.