A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

“Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”
– Chapter 1, pg. 7

“I have customers who bring their wives to my shop. The women come uncovered; they talk to me directly, look me in the eye without shame. They wear makeup and skirts that show their knees. Sometimes they even put their feet in front of me and their husbands stand there and watch. They allow it. They think nothing of a stranger touching their wives’ bare feet! They think they’re being modern men, intellectuals, on account of their education, I suppose.” – Chapter 10, pg. 63

"On the streets, Mariam saw people stopping in their tracks. At traffic lights, faces emerged from the windows of cars, turned upward toward the falling softness. What was it about a season’s first snow fall that was so entrancing? Was it the chance to see something as yet unsoiled, untrodden? To catch the fleeting grace of a new season, a lovely beginning, before it was trampled and corrupted?” – Chapter 13, pg. 79

“She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women like us suffer. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.” – Chapter 13, pg. 82

“The only enemy an Afghan cannot defeat is himself.” – Chapter 18, pg. 122

“Somewhere in the city someone had just died, a pall of black smoke was hovering over some building that had collapsed in a puffing mass of dust. There would be bodies to step around in the morning. Some would be collected. Others not. Then Kabul’s dogs, who had developed a taste for human meat, would feast.” – Chapter 26, pg. 169

So those were some of my favorite book quotes from A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

I didn’t cry. And I didn’t like it as much as The Kite Runner. I got the impression Hosseini assumed you had read his other book, so he went right ahead

and packed this one full of all the Afghanistan war details he breezed over the first time. The Mujahideen? Hazara? Tajik? Half the book I had no clue which of these groups were fighting the other. Hell, I’m not even sure if those words refer to a religion, ethnicity, or the first name of some commander guy. Anyway, it sure is good to live in America. Never will I have to worry a doctor might perform my C-section without anesthesia. Plus, such violent misogyny is disgusting. If I were Mariam I would have bashed my husband's head in earlier. And then do the same to anyone who tried to hang me for it. Hmm, why do I sound like a serial killer in all my posts?

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“Ali had a congenital paralysis of his lower facial muscles, a condition that rendered him unable to smile and left him perpetually grim-faced. It was an odd thing to see the stone-faced Ali happy, or sad, because only his slanted brown eyes glinted with a smile or welled with sorrow. People say that eyes are windows to the soul. Never was that more true than with Ali.”
– Chapter 2, pg. 7

“With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world to his liking. The problem, of course, was that he 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.”
– Chapter 3, pg. 14

“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.” – Chapter 3, pg. 19

“War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.” – Chapter 10, pg. 100

“America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins. If for nothing else, for that, I embraced America.” – Chapter 11, pg. 119

“That last thought had brought no sting with it. I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” – Chapter 25, pg. 313

“Sohrab’s silence wasn’t the self-imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.” – Chapter 25, pg. 315

“It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight. But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.” – Chapter 25, pg. 324

So those were some of my favorite book quotes from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

I cried. I think that’s a valid reason for me to like the book. That and Hosseini did an amazing job bringing everything full circle. So full circle that for a while there, I was getting annoyed with how perfectly things were working out for the main character (think Stephanie Meyer’s The Host). But by the end of the

story, when the tears were running down my cheeks, I didn’t care so much. What I really want to know is who came up with the idea of kite fighting? Because it makes perfect sense to allow young children to glue glass shards to string and let them run blindly through intersections. Why do we not have more games that promote hand injury and sudden death in America? In fact, the only part of this book that bored me was when Amir escaped Afghanistan to come live in the States. As a Southern California native, I know how exciting flea markets can be. Next on my list is A Thousand Splendid Suns. We’ll see if Hosseini can get me to tear up one more time.