Khaled Hosseini Quotes

Afghani - Novelist Born: March 4, 1965

Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight. Khaled Hosseini

Life, Perseverance, Patience, Faith

I'm a pretty uncomplicated person. I live a very simple life with my family and I enjoy very ordinary things. Khaled Hosseini

Family, Life, Live, Simple, Enjoy

Syria's neighboring countries cannot and should not carry the cost of caring for refugees on their own. The international community must share the burden with them by providing economic aid, investing in development in those countries, and opening their own borders to desperate Syrian families looking for protection. Khaled Hosseini

Community, Caring, Looking, Opening, Own

I spent a lot of winters in my childhood flying kites with my brother, with my cousins, with friends in the neighborhood. It's what we did in the winter. Schools close down. There was not much to do. Khaled Hosseini

Childhood, Winter, Brother, Flying, Down

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess. Khaled Hosseini

Time, Impossible, Story, Know, You, Need

People find meaning and redemption in the most unusual human connections. Khaled Hosseini

People, Connections, Meaning, Find, Most

The Taliban's acts of cultural vandalism - the most infamous being the destruction of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas - had a devastating effect on Afghan culture and the artistic scene. The Taliban burned countless films, VCRs, music tapes, books, and paintings. They jailed filmmakers, musicians, painters, and sculptors. Khaled Hosseini

Music, Culture, Musicians, Books, Giant

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

Story, Me, Surprise, Find, Way, Own

In my 20s, life seemed endless. At 49, I've had a chance to see how dark life can be, and I am far more aware of the constraints of time than when I wrote 'The Kite Runner.' I realise there is only a limited number of things I can do. Khaled Hosseini

Life, Time, I Am, Chance, Dark, I Can

I entered the literary world, really, from outside. My entire background has been in sciences; I was a biology major in college, then went to medical school. I've never had any formal training in writing. Khaled Hosseini

College, School, Training, Medical

Top 10
Khaled Hosseini
Quotes

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history. Khaled Hosseini

Women, History, Suffering, Think, World

I have a particular disdain for Islamic extremism, and of course, in both 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' that's obvious. Khaled Hosseini

Kite, Obvious, Thousand, Extremism, Both

One of the things novels should do is shine a light on those parts of us that are common, the fibres that connect all of us. They should convey the sense that we're all connected, coming from the same tree, sharing common roots. Khaled Hosseini

Light, Tree, Shine, Roots, Sharing, Same

Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves - their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles. Khaled Hosseini

War, Culture, People, Country, Precious

Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world. Khaled Hosseini

Ocean, Thoughts, Walking, World, Street

In Afghanistan, you don't understand yourself solely as an individual. You understand yourself as a son, a brother, a cousin to somebody, an uncle to somebody. You are part of something bigger than yourself. Khaled Hosseini

Son, Yourself, Brother, Uncle, You

Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought. Khaled Hosseini

Life, Stupid, Sadness, Random, Thought

I hate resting. I feel restless. My preference is to be working. Khaled Hosseini

Hate, Feel, Resting, Working, Restless

Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions. Khaled Hosseini

Life, Time, Action, Long, Consequences

A doctor in a hospital told me that when the mujaheddin were fighting in the early Nineties, he often performed amputations and Caesarean sections without anesthesia because there were no supplies. Khaled Hosseini

Doctor, Me, Fighting, Early, Hospital

Family is so central to Afghan life that all Afghan stories are family stories. Family is something I simply can't resist because all the great themes of human life - duty, grief, sacrifice, love, envy - you find all those things within families. Khaled Hosseini

Family, Life, Love, Great, Grief, Envy

My freshman year in college, I got a job working security. This was a high-tech building in Santa Clara, engineers coming in and out all the time. Khaled Hosseini

Time, Job, College, Building, Security

Writing for me is largely about rewriting. Khaled Hosseini

Writing, Me, Rewriting, About, Largely

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

Family, Learning, Book, Moment, School

The experience of writing 'The Kite Runner' is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again. Khaled Hosseini

Experience, Think, Writing, Energy, Back

Everything for me starts very small and snowballs. So I rarely start with the grand idea and find a place for it and narrow down. It's, really, just start small, and as I'm writing it, I begin to see - sometimes to my own surprise - what's unfolding and what's blooming. Khaled Hosseini

Writing, Me, Start, Surprise, Small

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