A Thousand Splendid Suns quotes

"nor was SHE old enough to appreciate the injustice, to see that it is the creators of the harami who are culpable, not the harami, whose only sin is being born."

About/to: mariam

Like a compass needle that points north, a mans accusing finger always finds a woman

Speaker: nana

There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school . And it's this: tahamul. Endure... It's our lot in life... Women like us. It's all we have. Do you understand?

Speaker: nana

About/to: mariam

 “She put four pebbles in the first column, for Khadija’s children, three for Afsoon’s, and three in the third column for Nargis’s children. Then she added a fourth column. A solitary, eleventh pebble.”

About Mariam

I used to worship you... On Thursdays, I sat for hours waiting for you.. I thought about you all the time... I didn't know you were ashamed of me

Speaker: Mariam

About/to: Jalil

Marriage can wait, education cannot

Speaker: Babi

How glorious to know that her love for it already dwarfed anything she had ever felt as a human being, to know that there was no need any longer for pebble games.

About/to: Mariam

Behind every trial and sorrow that he makes us shoulder, God has a reason.

Speaker: Mullah Faizullah

The past only held this wisdom, that love was a damaging mistake, it's accomplice hope, a treacherous illusion.

Speaker: Khaled Hosseini

A mans heart is a wretched thing. It isn't like a mothers womb. It won't stretch to make room for you.

Speaker: nana

You see some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.

Speaker: babi

About/to: Tariq and Laila

But it is God who has planted them... And it is his will that you tend to them

About/to: Mariam

That's your business isn't it cousin? To make nothing your business. Even your own sons going to war. How I pleaded with you. But you buried your nose in those cursed books and let your sons go like they were a pair of haramis.

About/to: Babi

Society has no chance of success if it's women are uneducated... No chance.

Speaker: Babi

Ahmad and Noor had always felt like lore to her. Like characters in a fable. Like kings in a history book... It is tariq who is real, flesh and blood... In her heart, her true brother is alive and well.

About/to: Laila

Gods word will never betray you my girl

About/to: Mariam

For the first time she could hear him with Nanas ears. She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurance.

About/to: Mariam

But she knows that her future is no match for her brothers past. They have overshadowed her in life, they obliterate her in death.

About/to: Laila

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs/ or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

Speaker: Babi

And suddenly, she knows that her suspicions are right. She understands with a dread that is a blinding whack to the side of her head that she was witnessing is nothing less than a courtship

About/to: Mariam

“The signing, his sure-handed, hers quavering”

About Laila & Rasheed

“You, you, on the other hand, would be a Benz. A brand-new, first-class, shiny benz…”

About Mariam and Laila, Said by Rasheed

“The other night, when he…Nobody’s ever stood up for me before,”

“I couldn’t let him. I wasn’t raised in a household where people did things like that.”

Said by Mariam, Said by Laila

Why have you pinned your little heart to an old, ugly hag like me? Huh? I am a nobody, don't you see? A dehati. What have I got to give you?

About/to: aziza

You try this again and I will find you. I swear on the prophets name that I will find you. And if I do, there isn't a court in this godforsaken country that will hold me accountable for what I will do.

Speaker: Rasheed

About/to: Laila

It's all I have to give her, this knowledge, these prayers. They're the only true possessions I've ever had

Speaker: Mariam

About/to: Laila

Everybody wants jack to rescue them from disaster. But there is no jack, jack is not coming. Jack is dead.

Speaker:Laila

 ‘...it occurred to her that this was the first time that she was deciding the course of her own life.’

About Mariam

‘And, with that, Mariam brought down the shovel. This time, she gave it everything she had.’

About Mariam

“Who will take care of them then? The Taliban? Think like a mother, Laila jo. Think like a mother. I am.”

Said by Mariam, about Laila and Aziza

For me it ends here. There's nothing more I want. Everything I'd ever wished for as a little girl, you've already given me. You and your children have made me so very happy. It's all right.

Speaker: Mariam

About/to: Laila

“And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last…”

About Mariam

She wrote out her name- the neem, the red, the yah, and the neem- remembering the last time she singed her name to a document, twenty seven years before... Beneath the watchful gaze of another mullah

About/to: Mariam

This is a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings

Speaker: Mariam

‘But the game involves only male names. Because, if it’s a girl, Laila has already named her.’

About/to: Laila