Fabio Celon did send me pages as he progressed, both in black and white and some color samples as well. It was really exciting to see the sketches and to see the story [The Kite Runner] shaping up visually.

In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.

Inside Laila too a battle was being waged : guilt on one side, partnered with shame, and, on the other, the conviction that what she and Tariq had done was not sinful; that it had been natural, good, beautiful, even inevitable, spurred by the knowledge that they might never see each other again.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

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

[Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns] is not just unique to books, but films and music.

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.