Latest Khaled Hosseini Quotes from Interviews

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• There are, however, those who have called the book [The Kite Runner] divisive and objected to some of the issues raised in the book, namely racism, discrimination, ethnic inequality etc.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Book, Issues, Racism

• I get daily e-mails from Afghans who thank me for writing this book [The Kite Runner], as they feel a slice of their story has been told by one of their own. So, for the most part, I have been overwhelmed with the kindness of my fellow Afghans.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Kindness, Book, Writing

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November 2003.

• I did see [in Afghanistan] plenty that reminded me of my childhood. I recognised my old neighbourhood, saw my old school, streets where I had played with my brother and cousins.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Cousin, Brother, Old School

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November 2003.

• I returned to Afghanistan because I had a deep longing to see for myself how people lived, what they thought of their government, how optimistic they were about the future of their homeland.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Optimistic, Government, People

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I was overwhelmed with the kindness of people [in Afghanistan] and found that they had managed to retain their dignity, their pride, and their hospitality under unspeakably bleak conditions.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Kindness, Pride, People

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November 2003.

• A great deal remains to be done in Afghanistan and the jury is out as to whether the international community has the commitment and the patience to see the rebuilding process through.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Commitment, Community, Done

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• The [George W.] Bush administration tripled its aid package to Afghanistan. [Hamid] Karzai finally (and courageously) announced that warlords will be forbidden from holding office in the future government. And finally, NATO agreed to expand the peacekeeping forces to troubled areas outside of Kabul.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Government, Office, Administration

• Equally important is the lack of cultivable land for farmers, a profound problem when you take into account that Afghanistan has always largely been an agricultural country, and that even before the wars destroyed lands and irrigation canals, only 5 per cent of the land was cultivable.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Country, War, Land

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Important, Fiction, Stories

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I returned to Kabul after a 27-year absence. I came away with some optimism but not as much as I had hoped for. The two major issues in Afghanistan are a lack of security outside Kabul (particularly in the south and east) and the powerful warlords ruling over the provinces with little or no allegiance to the central government. The other rapidly rising concern is the narcotic trade which, if not dealt with, may turn Afghanistan into another Bolivia or Colombia.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Powerful, Years, Two

• It so happens that the major relationships in the novel [The Kite Runner] are between men, dictated not by any sort of prejudice or discomfort with female characters, but rather by the demands of the narrative.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Character, Men, Female

• The Kite Runner is a story of two boys and a father, and the strange love triangle that binds them.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Father, Boys, Two

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• My own background is fairly liberal and so this notion of 'protecting women from outside intrusion' is not in my nature, nor in my upbringing.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Intrusion, Backgrounds, Notion

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I came from an educated, upper middle-class family. My mother was a Persian and history teacher at a large high school for girls. Many of the women in my extended family and in our circle of friends were professionals. In those days, women were a vital part of the economy in Kabul. They worked as lawyers, physicians, college professors, etc., which makes the tragedy of how they were treated by the Taliban that much more painful.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Girl, Mother, Teacher

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I have very fond memories of my childhood in Afghanistan, largely because my memories, unlike those of the current generation of Afghans, are untainted by the spectre of war, landmines, and famine.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Memories, War, Childhood

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• My family left Afghanistan in 1976, well before the Communist coup and the Soviet invasion. We certainly thought we would be going back. But when we saw those Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, the prospect for return looked very dim. Few of us, I have to say, envisioned that nearly a quarter century of bloodletting would follow.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Tanks, Rolling, Would Be

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I experienced Kabul with my brother the way Amir and Hassan do: long school days in the summer, kite fighting in the winter time, westerns with John Wayne at Cinema Park, big parties at our house in Wazir Akbar Khan, picnics in Paghman.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Summer, Brother, Party

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• Kabul was a thriving cosmopolitan city with its vibrant artistic, intellectual and cultural life. There were poets, musicians, and writers. There was also an influx of western culture, art, and literature in the '60s and '70s.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Art, Cities, Intellectual

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• For many people in the west, Afghanistan is synonymous with the Soviet war and the Taliban. I wanted to remind people that Afghans had managed to live in peaceful anonymity for decades, that the history of the Afghans in the twentieth century has been largely pacific and harmonious.

  Khaled Hosseini

  War, People, Peaceful

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• My father and I did work for a while at the flea market and there really are rows of Afghans working there, some of whom I am related to.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Father, Fleas, Flea Markets

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

• I wanted to write about Afghanistan before the Soviet war because that is largely a forgotten period in modern Afghan history.

  Khaled Hosseini

  War, Writing, Forgotten

• I came to the US as an immigrant and I recall vividly those first few years in California, the brief time we spent on welfare, and the difficult task of assimilating into a new culture.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Years, California, Tasks

• There [in The Kite Runner] certainly are, as is always the case with fiction, autobiographical elements woven through the narrative.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Woven, Fiction, Elements

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November 2003.

• The story line of my novel [The Kite Runner] is largely fictional. The characters were invented and the plot imagined.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Character, Plot, Stories

  "Interview: Khaled Hosseini". Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November 2003.

• If my book generates any sort of dialogue among Afghans, then I think it will have done a service to the community.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Book, Thinking, Community