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.

Writing for me is largely about rewriting.

Her beauty was the talk of the valley.It skipped two generations of women in our family, but it sure didn't bypass you, Laila.

And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.

The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

You have extreme poverty and high crime and you have to admit that the governance of the Kabul regime has been poor and has been losing its popular legitimacy. You have a corrupt police force, not to mention homelessness, joblessness. The problems are huge.