“Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of cons...” — Khaled Hosseini Quote

“Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions.”

“Writing for me is largely about rewriting.”

“She wished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But she sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far.... Mariam is in her own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.”

“Usually in films, when Muslims pray, it's either before or after they've blown something up.”

“There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.”

“I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.”

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”

“The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.”

“Surely even those immune from the world, for the time being, need the touch of one another, or all is lost.”

“It wasn't that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured, collected here, and in all libraries -- and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up--not just stopped but saved.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

“Wind soughed in the weeds. Inside him the flesh metronome went tick, tick. Life slipped away hadon by hadon, limning every joy with a rime of grief; and he walked backward into the future, waving and crying out "Goodbye! Good-bye! Good-bye!”