The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

The problem, of course, was that Baba 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.

there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft.

The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born.

Show him once and for all that his son was worthy. Then maybe my life as a ghost in this house would finally be over.

Maybe Baba would even read one of my stories. I’d write him a hundred if I thought he’d read one.

the laundry hanging on clotheslines in their yards stirred by the breeze to dance like butterflies.

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

I wondered how and when I’d become capable of causing this kind of pain.