When Aziz first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety. "What a scene you're making," Laila would say, releasing her to crawl toward Mariam. "What a scene! Calm down. Koala Mariam isn't going anywhere. There she is, your aunt. See? Go on, now." As soon as she was in Mariam's arms, Aziz's thumb shot into her mouth and she buried her face in Mariam's neck. Mariam bounced her stiffly, a half-bewildered, half-grateful smile on her lips. Mariam had never before been wanted like this. Love had never been declared to her so guilelessly, so unreservedly. Aziza made Mariam want to weep." Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziz's hair. "Huh? I am nobody, don't you see? A death. What have I got to give you?" But Aziz only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marvelled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections.

— Khaled Hosseini

When Aziz first spotted Mariam in the morning, her eyes always sprang open, and she began mewling and squirming in her mother's grip. She thrust her arms toward Mariam, demanding to be held, her tiny hands opening and closing urgently, on her face a look of both adoration and quivering anxiety..." Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me?" Mariam would murmur into Aziz's hair... "What have I got to give you?" But Aziz only muttered contentedly and dug her face in deeper. And when she did that, Mariam swooned. Her eyes watered. Her heart took flight. And she marveled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections.

— Khaled Hosseini

When you kill a man, You steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, Rob his children of a father.

— Khaled Hosseini

Who rebels with mathematics?

— Khaled Hosseini

With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when [she] would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by [his] name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion--like the phantom pain of an amputee.

— Khaled Hosseini

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.

— Khaled Hosseini

Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Asset was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

— Khaled Hosseini

You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.

— Khaled Hosseini

Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.

— Khaled Hosseini

You say you have no courage, but I see it in you. What you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. For that, I honor you.

— Khaled Hosseini