He is annoyed with their lack of interest, their blithe ignorance of the arbitrary genetic lottery that has granted them their privileged lives.

It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

It's a funny thing... but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.

The story line of my novel [The Kite Runner] is largely fictional. The characters were invented and the plot imagined.

At the door , she made him promise to go without goodbyes .She closed the door on him . Laila leaned her back against it , shaking against his pounding fists , one arm gripping her belly and a hand across her mouth , as he spoke throughout the door and promised that he would come back for her . She stood there until he tired , until he gave up , and then she listened to his uneven footsteps until they faded , until all was quiet , save for the gunfire cracking in the hills and her own heart thudding in her belly , her eyes , her bones .

the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion

Mostly, though, I dream of good things...I dream that flowers will bloom in the streets..again and music will play in the...houses and kites will fly in the skies.