The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.

Blood is a powerful thing

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir

Give sustenance, Allah. Give sustenance to me.

Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything

Afghanistan has always been sort of a fractured nation, very tribal, where the countryside and the distant provinces have been run by custom, by tribal law and by tribal leaders rather than edicts from the central government in Kabul.

Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.