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Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.
Khaled Hosseini -
That was a long time ago, but 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.
Khaled Hosseini
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Fuck the Russia!
Khaled Hosseini -
I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn't I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him.
Khaled Hosseini -
Giti: Nobody ever came for my hand.
Khaled Hosseini -
Tariq (meeting Laila after ten years): It's good to see you, Laila.
Khaled Hosseini -
Tariq: I do it for the girls
Khaled Hosseini -
What good is it? All this, what good is it? -Mariam
Khaled Hosseini
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I ran. A grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. But I didn't care. I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of Panjsher on my lips. I ran.
Khaled Hosseini -
How could I of all people, chastise someone for their past?
Khaled Hosseini -
Every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.
Khaled Hosseini -
Laila (at fourteen years): What would your mother say when she saw you smoke?
Khaled Hosseini -
War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.
Khaled Hosseini -
Hassan's not going anywhere. He's staying right here with us, where he belongs. This is his home and we're his family. Don't you ever ask me that question again!
Khaled Hosseini
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Hassan slumps to the asphalt, his life of unrequited loyalty drifting from him like the windblown kites he used to chase.
Khaled Hosseini -
Regret...when it comes to you, I have oceans of it.
Khaled Hosseini -
It always falls on the sober to pay for the sins of the drunk.
Khaled Hosseini -
Mariam: I can't beleive what you are now, if you were a Benz before.
Khaled Hosseini -
And I wrote to you, Laila. Volumes. -
Khaled Hosseini -
But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
Khaled Hosseini
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It wasn't easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid. And Mariam was afraid.
Khaled Hosseini -
Nana (to Mariam) : A man's heart isn't like a woman's womb, Mariam! It won't bleed, it won't make room for you. A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. I'm all you have in this world, Mariam and when I'm gone, you'll have nothing. You are nothing!
Khaled Hosseini -
And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, one invader after another. Macedonians. Sassanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing.
Khaled Hosseini -
But that's what I'm saying to you... That there are bad people in this world, and sometimes bad people stay bad. Sometimes you have to stand up to them.
Khaled Hosseini