If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate ---sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school.

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.

I grew up with some kind of storytelling instinct, and when I write, my default setting is to find a story and then to tell it. It's the only way I know how to write.

Sad stories make good books

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.

I now know that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.

President Karzai is an incredibly kind and decent man. I had the pleasure of meeting him, and he genuinely cares for his people. But I think he had too much of a tendency to want to rule by listening to all voices at all times.