There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.

It's hard when you make a film from a book that so many people love, because there's no way to get the entire story into a two-hour movie. But I was pleased with the reaction [for Kite Runner].

Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

some stories don't need telling

Regret... when it comes to you, I have oceans of it.