kite runner quotes

change

• “ Afgans cherish custom but abhor rules’

• ‘kabul had become […] a city of harelipped ghosts. […] america was a river […] let my sins drown to the bottom’

• “i wanted to be just like baba and i wanted to be nothing like him’

• ‘i could ffeel it rising from sorya and settling between us […] like a newborn child

• ‘like a harelip’

• ‘no […] but we have to stay’

• ‘my fathers house was the picture of fallen splendor’

• ‘you are an honorable man , amir agha. a true afgan’

dreams

• '‘baba refused and everyone shook their heads in dismay at his obsinate ways. Then Baba suceeded and everone shook their heads in awe at his triuphant ways”

• “will you read me more of it tomorrow?”

• “‘Theres no monster’”

• “Baba loved the idea of America. It was living in America that gave him a ulcer”

cyclical

• “in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend. […] I never thought of Hasan and me and friends either’

• “four of them […] bleeding down there… his pants… doesnt talk anymore’

• ‘hes great with a slingshot’

• ‘plabtd a fistful of crumpled money under a mattress’

violence

• “bearded idiots […] God help us all if Afganistan ever falls ito their hands”

• “Sometimes I wished they had all died along with their parents’

• “rapid staccato of gunfire

• “i wished i too had some kind of scar that would beget Baba’s sympathy”

• ‘splotch of blood on his left sleeve’

atonement/sin

• “Sanaubar’s suggestive stride and oscilating hips sent men to reveries of infidelity”

• “no act more wretched than stealing, Amir”

• “a boy who can’t stand up for himself becomess a man who can’t stand upto anything’

• “‘Imbiceile’ it means smart, intelligent’ […] I’d try to make up for it by giving him one of my old shirts or a broken toy”

• “‘getting sick’ […]] hassan’s brown corduroy pants discarded […] in the alley”

• “perhaps something someone somewhere had decided to deny me fatherhood”

race/ethnicity

• “chiseled from hardwood […] narrow eyes like bamboo leaves […] gold green, even sapphire […] chinese doll maker’s istrument may have slipped […] grown tired and careless ’

• “his people pollute our homeland […] dirty our blood’

innocence

• “sky is seamless and blue, the snow so white my eyes burn”

• “look of the lamb”

• ‘sohrabs eyes flickd to me. they were slaughter sheep’s eyes’

class

• “while i ate and complained about my homework, Hassan made my bed, polished my shoes, andironed my outfit”

• “illiterate hazara […] never be anything but a cook. how dare he critize you?”

• “would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha?”

family/ friendship

• ‘reached across my seat, slung my arm around him, pulled him close’

• “nevermind that we spent entire witers flying, running kites. neer mind that to me, the face of afganistan is that of a boy with a thin boned frame”

• “pomegrate tree near the entrance to the cemetary’

• “for you a thousand times over”

gender

• “lost her to a ate most Afgans considered far worse than death”

• ‘lore has it my father onced wrestled a blakc bear […] with his bare hands’

• “won the genetic lottery that had determined my sex”

• “a woman needed a husband. even if he did silence the song in her”

family

• “Baba hred the same ursing woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan”

• “Mine was Baba. His was Amir”

• “You can’t love a person who lies that way without fearig him too. Maybe even hating him a little”

• “as the trees froe an dthe ice sheated the roads, the chill between Baba and m thawed a little”

• “morning sun to my yelda”

guilt/self loathing

“blood money”

“i was the snake in the grass’

“the blackness of greif i have brought onto everyone’

“so much goodness in my lige. i wondered wether id eserved any of it’

‘the harder i laughed, the harder he kicked me, punched me, scratched me’

honour

“war doesnt negate decency.. it demands it’

“charrity money […] walked out […] like a man cured of a tumor’

“i envied her. her secret was out’

“every day he doned his gray suit, wound his pocket watch, and waited’