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59544b5
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I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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928deda
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In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. "You want to know?" he sneered. "Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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4023859
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Except that wasn't all. The real fun began when a kite was cut. That was where the kite runners came in, those kids who chased the windblown kite drifting through the neighborhoods until it came spiraling down in a field, dropping in someone's yard, on a tree or a rooftop. The chase got pretty fierce; hordes of kite runners swarmed the streets, shoved past each other like those people from Spain I'd read about once, the ones who ran from th..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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4758141
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All my life, I [Pari] have lived like an aquarium fish in the safety of a glass tank, behind a barrier as impenetrable as it has been transparent. I have been free to observe the glimmering world on the other side, to picture myself in it, if I like. But I have always been contained, hemmed in, by the hard, unyielding confines of the existence that Baba has constructed for me, at first knowingly, when I was young, and now guilelessly, now t..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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2d594db
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gft:khyly mytrsm gftm:chr? gft:chwn z th dl khwshHlm... yn jwr khwshHly trsnkh st... prsydm akhr chr?!! w w jwb dd wqty adm yn jwr khwshHl bshd srnwsht amdh st chyzy r z adm bgyrd!
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Khaled Hosseini |
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73dee3d
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Some days, I listen to that clock ticking in the hallway. Then I think of all the ticks, all the minutes, all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without you. And I can't breathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart. I get so weak. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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d3ec6c2
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Zindagi migzara (life goes on)
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Khaled Hosseini |
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7b74967
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Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything - that is how, it is between people who are each other's first memories
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Khaled Hosseini |
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d216f68
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Regret... when it comes to you, I have oceans of it.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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378ca2d
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If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.
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belief
god
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Khaled Hosseini |
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c833bb9
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Laila remembered Mammy telling Babi once that she had married a man who had no convictions. Mammy didn't understand. She didn't understand that if she looked into a mirror, she would find the one unfailing conviction of his life looking right back at her.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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f33dd3c
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I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget..
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life
love
moving-on
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Khaled Hosseini |
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ce85050
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People...shouldn't be allowed to have new children if they'd already given away all their love to their old ones. It wasn't fair.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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7cc170b
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You're not going to cry, are you? - I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousand years.
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tariq
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Khaled Hosseini |
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9c11e65
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I think he loved us equally, but differently.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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7356d99
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The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. The word 'senseless' springs to mind, and Idris thwarts it. It's what people always say. A senseless act of violence. A senseless murder. As if you could commit sensible murder.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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5b3a851
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For you, a thousand times over." Then I turned and ran. It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything alright. It didn't make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. But I'll take it. With open arms."
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Khaled Hosseini |
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134d2e1
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it is a heartBreaking sound, Amir Jan, the Wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you Never hear it.
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grieving-mother
loss
prayer
reality
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Khaled Hosseini |
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dc4fd2d
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A stubborn ass needs a stubborn driver
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Khaled Hosseini |
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3d4ae58
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Look at me, Mariam.' Reluctantly, Mariam did. Nana said, 'Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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d66782e
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she held her breath, and in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second she didn't breathe, God would grant her another day
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Khaled Hosseini |
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2ab9b00
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Nine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did most mornings, hungry for the sight of her friend Tariq. This morning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting. - How long will you be gone? - She'd asked when Tariq had told her that his parents were taking him south, to the city of Ghazni, to visit his paternal uncle. - Thirteen days - Thirteen days? - It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila. - I am not. - You're not going to ..
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tariq
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Khaled Hosseini |
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46380b2
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A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about cliches: 'Avoid them like the plague.' Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along with him, but I always thought cliches got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead-on. But the aptness of the cliched saying is overshadowed by the nature of the saying as a cliche.
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writing
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Khaled Hosseini |
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6461962
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I throw my makeshift , my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember I haven't prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn't matter, I will utter those few words I still remember: . There's no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there's a God, there always ha..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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cee620b
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Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty. That was a little unsettling but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.
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inspirational
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Khaled Hosseini |
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c506b88
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Rahim Khan laughed. "Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors."
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Khaled Hosseini |
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5829cbd
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But Laila has decided that she will not be crippled by resentment. Mariam wouldn't want it that way. 'What's the sense?' she would say with a smile both innocent and wise. 'What good is it, Laila jo?' And so Laila has resigned herself to moving on. For her own sake, for Tariq's, for her children's. And for Mariam, who still visits Laila in her dreams, who is never more than a breath or two below her consciousness. Laila has moved on. Becaus..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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f92f96f
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He says this is war. There is no shame in war. Tell him he's wrong. War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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60f0f09
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And one more thing...You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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cbda3c4
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Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.
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psychopathy
sociopathy
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Khaled Hosseini |
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8f16ebe
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I shook my head no. For minutes, neither of us spoke a word. It breathed between us, what he had said, the pain of a life suppressed, of happiness never to be.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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9f3d2d0
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It was you Nabi. It was always you. Didn't you know?
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love-triangle
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Khaled Hosseini |
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82411f8
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I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's roaring flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No questions. No ID.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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a0a5fce
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There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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b76e09f
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If I ever do get married," Tariq said, "they'll have to make room for three on the wedding stage. Me, the bride, and the guy holding the gun to my head"
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Khaled Hosseini |
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96433f8
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Panic. You open your mouth. Open it so wide your jaws creak. You order your lungs to draw air, NOW, you need air, need it NOW. But your airways ignore you. They collapse, tighten, squeeze, and suddenly you're breaithing through a drinking straw. Your mouth closes and your lips purse and all you can manage is a croak. Your hands wriggle and shake. Somewhere a dam has cracked open and a flood of cold sweat spills, drenches your body. You want..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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3d633bb
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You know." "Know what?" "That I only have eyes for you."
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Khaled Hosseini |
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62fa7e8
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After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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9aa003f
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Give sustenance, Allah. Give sustenance to me.
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sad
sorrow
spiritual
sustenance
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Khaled Hosseini |
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21aa3de
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There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break. - Amir
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Khaled Hosseini |
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238322b
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What good is regret? It brings back nothing. What we have lost is irretrievable.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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e144d15
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When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?"
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Khaled Hosseini |
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9a3660d
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Awake. And alone with demons of my own.
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superstition
truth
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Khaled Hosseini |
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097706e
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lmr l ystTy` `d l'qmr lmsh`@ `l~ sqwfh ,, 'w l'lf shms lmshrq@ lty tkhtby' khlf jdrnh !!
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Khaled Hosseini |