Explore Quotes by Khaled Hosseini

I don't remember how I picked up 'Different Seasons,' but it was a book I read on a grave shift. I was absolutely floored by it; 'The Body,' a story about kids who go searching for a corpse in the woods, impacted me especially.

One of the things novels should do is shine a light on those parts of us that are common, the fibres that connect all of us. They should convey the sense that we're all connected, coming from the same tree, sharing common roots.

The deal is such that when I begin writing something, I open a door, and those characters come in, and then they won't leave, and so I live with them every day, all day. They are there with me when I'm driving my kids to school, when I'm standing in line at the grocery store.

I hear from non-Afghan immigrants - Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs in France - all the time. These people have had to redefine their lives, which is what my family went through when we came to the U.S. in 1980.

Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves - their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles.

I was told bedtime stories by my father or my grandmother. Books, I mostly read on my own in bed.

The jury is out as to whether the Afghans are up to the task of protecting their people.

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess.

To me, families are puzzles that take a lifetime to work out - or not, as often is the case - and I like to explore how people within them try to connect, be it through love, duty, or circumstance.

Economic chasm between people is something that is of interest to me. And something that I used to write about even as a child. It's something I've revisited a few times in my writings.

My freshman year in college, I got a job working security. This was a high-tech building in Santa Clara, engineers coming in and out all the time.

You must not believe your own PR; it would be grotesque.

I've learned things about the craft of writing and about structuring a book and about character development and so on that I've just learned on the fly.

Afghanistan is doomed if women are barred once again from public life.

I never thought what I wrote was good enough to be published. I thought of myself as completely detached from that constellation of real writers. It was completely for myself.

The strange dilemma of the 'ethnic-fiction' writer is that you are supposed to carry a banner for your homeland, be a voice for it, and educate the rest of the world about it, but I think that's far too onerous a burden for any writer to bear.

Obama's middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah, too? Do McCain and Palin think there's something wrong with my name?

No one ever really read to me as a child.

I landed in Kabul the day before Shock and Awe in Iraq, and you could all but hear the collective groan.

I felt on the periphery of high school culture; one of those invisible creatures that walk the campus. I think it was a lot worse for my parents.

I'm glad I wrote them when I did because I think if I were to write my first novel now, it would be a different book, and it may not be the book that everybody wants to read. But if I were given a red pen now, and I went back... I'd take that thing apart.