it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

She was the trembler of knees, the spiller of teacups.

Her impulse, her need, to be the corrector of injustices, warden of the downtrodden flock. And

There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again. I was entirely absorbed in that world as I wrote the book [The Kite Runner] and to see the final page of that manuscript whir out of the printer was a very special feeling indeed.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.

In her smile, Idris sees how little of the world he has known, even at thirty-five years of age, its savageness, its cruelty, its boundless brutality.