The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.

I don't know whom or what he was defying. [...] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.

People…shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if they’d already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn’t fair.

Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.

But if you have a book that needs urgent reading,' she said, 'then Hakim is your man.

Now, especially in public places, you always have that unease. When the children were cast, if I thought that they might be victims of violence because of participating in this movie, we would have chosen children from outside this country.

All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.