For a novelist, it’s kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. That said, I’m in a unique position to speak on behalf of Afghanistan on certain issues that I feel are important, particularly the issue of Afghan refugees.

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.

I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me.

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

[Flying kite with my friends] is one of the seminal memories of growing up for me.

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.

For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.