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ad66340
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you say you have no courage, but i see it in you. what you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. for that, i honor you.
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inspirational
respect
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Khaled Hosseini |
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5d2577e
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Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 --and all that followed-- was already laid in those first words.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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4b18b7a
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You say their stories, it is gift they give you.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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3a950b6
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It was madness.Sheer lunacy. A spectacularly foolish and baseless faith, against enormous odds, that a world you do not control will not take from you the one thing you cannot bear to lose. Faith that the world will not destroy you.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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05fe6de
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God has granted you a special talent. It's now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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8e31161
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At times, he didn't understand the meaning of the Koran's words. But he said he liked the enhancing sounds the Arabic words made as they rolled off his tongue. He said they comforted him, eased his heart. "They'll comfort you to . Mariam jo," he said. "You can summon then in your time of your need, and they won't fail you. God's words will never betray you, my girl."
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religion
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Khaled Hosseini |
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ce6d814
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I know that in the end, God will forgive me. He will forgive your father, me, and you too. I hope you can do the same. Forgive your father if you can. Forgive me if you wish. But most important, forgive yourself.
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forgiveness
wisdom
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Khaled Hosseini |
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6f753c1
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these random unkind moment that catch you wen you least expect them.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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747b5f2
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Air grew heavy, damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks.
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descriptive
khaled
scared
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Khaled Hosseini |
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a7746d3
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I'll die if you go. The Jinn will come, and I'll have one of my fits. You'll see, I'll swallow my tongue and die. Don't leave me, Mariam jo. Please stay. I'll die if you go.
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gone
jalil
leaving
mariam
nana
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Khaled Hosseini |
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3120055
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Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time
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Khaled Hosseini |
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feebf51
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At that moment, she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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d11918f
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Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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1da6183
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I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.
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truthful
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Khaled Hosseini |
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d475f10
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m 'Gn~ hdhh l'kdhyb ,,rjl GnyW ykhbr 'kdhyb GnyW@ ,,!
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Khaled Hosseini |
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086cf13
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I'm all you have in this world Mariam, and when I'm gone you'll have nothing. You ARE nothing!
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nana
tough
world
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Khaled Hosseini |
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3352b65
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But Mariam hardly noticed, hardly cared...the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that Love was a damaging mistake and its accomplice, Hope, a treacherous illusion.
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war
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Khaled Hosseini |
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f76261c
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If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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ba34c04
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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.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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62e6c79
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You know the old bit," he said. "You're on a deserted island. You can have five books. Which do you choose? I never thought I'd actually have to."
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Khaled Hosseini |
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92217db
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People in the countryside carry a sense of dignity. They wear it, don't they? Like a badge? I'm being genuine.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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84978ca
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Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980's: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.
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customs
life
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Khaled Hosseini |
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871b23f
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Happiness like this is frightening....they only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something away from you
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Khaled Hosseini |
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be78cca
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Soon, he would become an adult. And when he did, there would be not going back because adulthood was akin to what his father had once said about being a war hero: one you became one, you died one.
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childhood
coming-of-age
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Khaled Hosseini |
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97d84a9
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That's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does.
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life-lesson
reality
thekiterunner
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Khaled Hosseini |
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8dd59a1
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Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.
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honor
love
redemption
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Khaled Hosseini |
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77fdb10
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James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now this Lou Gehrig fellow of mine. How did men come to monopolize disease names too?
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medicine
men
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Khaled Hosseini |
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eff8088
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Only two weeks since he had left, and it was already happening. Time, blunting the edges of those sharp memories. Laila bore down mentally. What had he said? It seemed vital, suddenly, that she know. Laila closed her eyes. Concentrated. With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, i..
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memory
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Khaled Hosseini |
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0ca5833
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It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.
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mutism
quiet
silence
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Khaled Hosseini |
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01b6961
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So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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9b3782c
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I don't know whom or what he was defying. [...] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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05983ab
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n m yHdth fy 'ym qlyl@ w'Hyn ywm wHd Hty, ystTy` tGyyr tjh lmr kl Hyth.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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8720b2b
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Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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2c0b132
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I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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2b5d896
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A life lived from the back seat, observed as it blured by. An indifferent life.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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775b63e
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I may not agree with all or even most of the tribal traditions, but it seems ti me that, out there, people live more authentic lives. They have a sturdiness about them. A refreshing humility. Hospitality too. And resilience. A sense of pride.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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5c2ff77
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I noticed Wahid's boys, all three thin with dirt-caked faces and short-cropped brown hair under their skull caps, stealing furative glances at my digital wristwatch. ...I unsnapped the wristwatch and gave it to the youngest of the three boys. He muttered a sheepish "Tashakor." "It tells you the time in any city in the world," I told him. The boys, nodding politely passing the watch between them, taking turns trying it on. But they lost inte..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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106de2e
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Marriage can wait. Education cannot...Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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37c89b6
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But if you have a book that needs urgent reading,' she said, 'then Hakim is your man.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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b44fee8
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In her smile, Idris sees how little of the world he has known, even at thirty-five years of age, its savageness, its cruelty, its boundless brutality.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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45b8478
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Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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b68e09b
|
What was I supposed to be, growing in your womb -- assuming it was even in our womb that I was conceived? A seed of hope? A ticket purchased to ferry you from the dark? A patch for that hole you carried in your heart? If so, then I wasn't enough. I wasn't nearly enough. I was no balm to your pain, only another dead end, another burden, and you must have seen that early on. You must have realized it. But what could you do? You couldn't go do..
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Khaled Hosseini |
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f399b35
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When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.
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Khaled Hosseini |
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b9864e4
|
When Aziza first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety... "Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziza's hair... "What have I got to give you?" But ..
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innocence
love
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Khaled Hosseini |