The Kite Runner

For you, a thousand times over

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.

it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

There is a way to be good again...

When you kill a man, you steal a life. 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.

There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir

She said, 'I'm so afraid.' And I said, 'why?,' and she said, 'Because I'm so profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening.' I asked her why and she said, 'They only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.

Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything

People say that eyes are windows to the soul.

Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

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.

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. - Amir

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.

Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace." - Baba

In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.

there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life... you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a ather. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... there is no act more wretched than stealing.

You've always been a tourist here. You just didn't know it.

Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you.

I'm so afraid. Because I'm so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening...They only let you this happy if they're preparing to take something from you.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end…crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis (nomads).

An Afghan who is afraid of dying is an Afghan who is already dead.

This was the illness my father was carrying around with him.

Bravo, Amir. You're a good son.

I often convinced myself I had no envy of Hassan.

En eso consistía volar cometas; en dejar que tu cabeza volara junto a ella.

Cuando matas a un hombre, le robas la vida, robas el marido a una esposa y el padre a unos hijos. Cuando mientes, le robas al otro el derecho a la verdad. Cuando engañas, robas el derecho a la equidad. ¿Compendes?