Guide Note

This page contains quotes from the Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner. Set against the backdrop of Afghanistan, The novel tells the story of Amir and how he deals with his betrayal of his boyhood friend Hassan. Historical events such as the Soviet invasion, the exodus to Pakistan, and the rise of the Taliban all take place during the story.

Fast Facts

1. Author: Khaled Hosseini
2. Publication Date: May 29, 2003
3. Pages: 371 (Hardcover)
4. Publisher: Riverhead Books
5. ISBN: 978-1573222457 (Hardcover)
6. First English-language novel from an Afghani author
7. New York Times Bestseller: Over two years
8. Film Adaptation: 2007, Dreamworks Pictures

Reviews

• "Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence." - New York Times
• "Hosseini has taken the sorrowful history of his tragically manipulated birthplace and turned it into informative, sentimental but nevertheless touching popular fiction." - San Fransisco Chronicle
• "Although the book can sometimes be melodramatic and garrulous, it provides an extraordinary perspective on the struggles of a country that, until that doleful September day, had been for too long ignored or misunderstood." - BookPage.com

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The Kite Runner Quotes

• Wikiquote: Khaled Hosseini
  • "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. 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. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years." - Ch. 1

• • "Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors." - Ch. 3

• • "If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar."

• • "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." - pg. 361

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

• Notable Quotes from Literature: The Kite Runner
  • "… I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering it things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night." - pg. 359

• • “I firmly believed that if I had picked up a rifle and gone on a murdering rampage, I would have still had the benefit of her unblinking love. Because I have rid her heart of its greatest malady. I had relieved her of the greatest fear of every Afghan mother: that no honorable khastegar would ask for her daughter’s hand. That her daughter would age alone, husband-less, childless. Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her.” - pg. 178

• WikiSummaries: The Kite Runner Quotes
  • "There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break."

• • "I brought Hassan’s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty."

• • "I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so. A smile. Lopsided. Hardly there. But there." - pg. 370

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