The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

“You know . . . I like where I live.” He was always doing that, reading my mind. “It’s my home.”

But this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard.

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

time can be a greedy thing—sometimes it steals all the details for itself.

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

lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.