A Thousand Splendid Suns quotes

"tea set... meant to ward off evil... shattered"

Chapter 1

- evil is coming

- identity/ connection

"rathole" "plastered with mud and handfuls of straw" "his form of penance"

Chapter 2

- the Kolba

"like a compass needle that points North, a mans accusing finger always find a woman"

Chapter 1

- gender roles

- central theme

"then it snapped away from view. A hand appeared and frantically pulled at a cord. The curtains fell shut"

Chapter 5

- illegitimacy

"so tall, so foreboding, Jalils walls" "gleaming glass structure"

Chapter 5

- Jalils house

- contrast Kolba

"gust of wind blew and parted the drooping branches of the weeping willow like a curtain"

Chapter 5

- loss of childhood innocence

"you don't understand. You need to come down. We have to talk to you. It's important"

Chapter 6

- gender expectations/ autonomy

"seen nine year old girls given to men twenty years older than your suitor"

Chapter 7

- gender expectations

"she smelled him before she saw him" "size of him almost made her gasp" "nails were yellow-brown like the inside of a rotting apple" "no trouble forcing it over her knuckles"

Chapter 8

- introduction of Rasheed

"next time Mariam signed her name to a document, twenty-seven years later"

Chapter 8

- prolepsis

"space of it suffocated Mariam" "row of dying saplings" "gutters separated the sidewalk from the road on both sides and flowed with mucky water"

Chapter 9

- setting Kabul/ Rasheed house

"you're shaking. Maybe I scare you. Do I scare you. Are you frightened of me?"

Chapter 9

- gender

- power

"this mans will felt as imposing and I'm,paving as the Safid Koh mountains looming over Gul Daman"

"one wrong look, one improper word and blood is spilled"

Chapter 10

- gender expectations

- domination

"prized by protectiveness"

Chapter 12

- gender roles

- early marriage

"no shirts, no trousers, no socks or underpants"

Chapter 12

- hypocrisy of rasheed

"they would make good companions after all"

Chapter 12

- Mariam has hope

- accepting

"shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it" "resolve with punches, slaps and kicks" "dreaded the sound of him coming home" "no matter how much she submitted to his wants and demands it wasn't enough"

Chapter 15

- treatment of women

"Like the accordion on which Tariqs father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariqs absence or presence"

Chapter 16

- hope

- love

"a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated"

Chapter 16

- Babi as Hosseinis mouth piece

- education

"a sound somewhere between a squeak and a gasp escaped her lips"

Chapter 18

- friendship

- flashlight = hope

"then his hands went to work and she understood"

Chapter 18

- good violence

"it was Tariq who was real flesh and blood"

Chapter 19

- families

"Mammys heart was like a pallid beach where Lailas footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed"

Chapter 20

- mirror Mariam and Laika

"and that my friends is the story of our country, one invader after another... Macedonians, Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols. Now the soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered and nothing pretty to look at but still standing"

Chapter 21

- Afghanistan's spirit

"relieved to see that the sky had dimmed so that she wouldn't have to meet Tariqs eyes in the bright daylight"

Chapter 22

- innocence

"pulling from the debris what remained of a sister, a brother, a grandchild"

Chapter 24

- conflict

"it's the whistling"

Chapter 24

- media res

- conflict

"Pashtun militia men were attacking Hazara households breaking in and shooting entire families execution style... Hazaras were retaliating by abducting Pashtun civilians, raping Pashtun girls, shelling neighbourhoods"

Chapter 24

- conflict

- foreshadowed by fight at party

"like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could" "oblivious to the sin they had committed"

Chapter 25

- contrast with Rasheed

"in fact this is... well I'd say this is downright charitable or me. ' He smiled. 'The way I see it I deserve a medal"

Chapter 29

- gender roles

- Rasheed

"if she were a car she would be a Volga... a brand new first class shiny Benz"

Chapter 31

- early treatment of Laila

"but suddenly leaving was no longer an option"

Chapter 30

- women's autonomy

"then an astonishing thing happened, the girl lunged at him" "in this fleeting exchange with Mariam, Laila knew they were not enemies any longer"

Chapter 34

- justified violence

- friendship

"it was the staged delivery. Like a performance in attempt on his part, both sly and pathetic, to impress, to charm"

Chapter 29

- Rasheed

"Rasheeds demands rained down on them like the rockets on Kabul"

Chapter 31

- abuse

"it falls on me to guard not only your honour, but ours, our nang and namoos"

Chapter 31

- gender expectations

"Then the baby squealed happily and Mariam knew that a favourable judgement had passed on her behalf"

Chapter 33

- family

"later he mounted her and released himself with haste"

Chapter 34

- animalistic

- caricature of brutality

"tentative but pleasant companionship"

Chapter 35

- humanity

- friendship

"he'd frightened her badly waving that loaded gun near Aziza"

Chapter 35

- male violence

"the past held only this wisdom: was a damaging mistake and it's accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them"

Chapter 35

- hope

"sound like a wooden club repeatedly slapping a side of beef" "delivering a kick to the flank that would have Laila pissing blood for days"

Chapter 36

- abuse

"there's isn't a court in this godforsaken country that will hold me accountable for what I will do"

Chapter 36

- gender

- psychological abuse

"I, for one, will shower them with rose petals"

Chapter 37

- rasheeds hope with Taliban

"swarmed the dilapidated Kabul museum and smashed pre Islamic statues to rubble"

Chapter 38

- with Bamiyan buddhas going, cultural annihilation

"described with queer exhilaration the hands he'd seen severed, the lashings, the hangings, the beheadings"

Chapter 38

- violence

- Rasheed is a weirdo

"someone elbowed her in the ribs and she elbowed back... Mariam clawed at necks, at arms and elbows, at hair and when a woman nearby hissed, Mariam hissed back" "put the live ones on top" "stained surgical gloves"

Chapter 39

- violence contrast hospital setting

- reality for women

"Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made"

Chapter 39

- mother

"how forgivable when compared to Rasheed malice or to the brutality she had seen men inflict on each other"

Chapter 41

- Jalil

- violence

"Jack is not coming back. Jack is dead"

Chapter 41

- Titanic

- Tariq, lack of hipe

"powerful collisions deep down and how all we see is a tremor" "made a point to reach them something"

Chapter 42

- education

- Aziza trauma

"painted those trousers with watercolour. When the Taliban are gone, he'll just wash them off"

Chapter 44

- hope

"Back in a Kolba it seemed, after all these years" "the women eyed her with a reverent, almost awe struck expression" "she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back... this was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings"

Chapter 47

- legitimacy

"a woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her"

Chapter 50

- Mariam <3