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.

For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture.

It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names.

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 see America has infused you with the optimism that has made her so great

If you were the poor, suffering was your currency.

And one more thing...You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.