A stubborn ass needs a stubborn driver Khaled Hosseini More Quotes by Khaled Hosseini More Quotes From Khaled Hosseini If you were the poor, suffering was your currency. Khaled Hosseini currency poor suffering Human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries. Khaled Hosseini messy unpredictable behavior She was an extraordinary woman, and I went to bed that night feeling like I was perhaps more than ordinary myself. This was the effect she had on me. Khaled Hosseini bed feelings night If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, [and] to all rooms inside. Khaled Hosseini keys house doors Regret... when it comes to you, I have oceans of it. Khaled Hosseini regret ocean My memories of Kabul are vastly different than the way it is when I go there now. My memories are of the final years before everything changed. When I grew up in Kabul, it couldn't be mistaken for Beirut or Tehran, as it was still in a country that's essentially religious and conservative, but it was suprisingly progressive and liberal. Khaled Hosseini religious memories country Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Khaled Hosseini shutting-down tranquility quiet If the story had been about anyone else, it would been dismissed as laaf, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate ---sadly, almost a national affliction; if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once passed a biology test in high school. Khaled Hosseini kids school son I think that to fully appreciate baseball, it helps to have been born in the U.S. Khaled Hosseini appreciate baseball thinking I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time. Khaled Hosseini emancipation afghanistan thinking We stayed huddled that way until the early hours of the morning. The shootings and explosions had lasted less than an hour, but they had frightened us badly, because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. They were foreign sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born. Khaled Hosseini sound morning children People find meaning and redemption in the most unusual human connections. Khaled Hosseini human-connection redemption people Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work. Khaled Hosseini imaginative active reading There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry. Khaled Hosseini tradition literature writing I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way. Khaled Hosseini elements stories way I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter. Khaled Hosseini reading book school 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. Khaled Hosseini simple men hands All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman. Khaled Hosseini tenderness men night I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how 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 grief sorry loss And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold. Khaled Hosseini flower mistake past