A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 —and all that followed— was already laid in those first words.

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.

Sad stories make good books

I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

I have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person's heart