JP’s Reviews > The Kite Runner > Status Update

My eyes returned to our suitcases. They made me sad for Baba. After everything he’d built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life: one disappointing son and two suitcases.

“I want you to ask this man something,” Baba said. He said it to Karim, but looked directly at the Russian officer. “Ask him where his shame is.”

They spoke. “He says this is war. There is no shame in war.”

“Tell him he’s wrong. War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

Hassan returned the smile. Except his didn't look forced.
"I know," he said. And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

“Why did the man kills his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn’t he have just smelled an onion?”

A man found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. Even tho he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife’s slain body in his arms.