For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.
Interpretation
Courage involves having something to protect or fight for; without stakes, the concept of courage is diminished.
In this quote, Khaled Hosseini emphasizes that true courage emerges when there is something significant to risk or protect. When one has nothing to lose, the notion of bravery changes, as there is no real challenge or fear to confront, highlighting the importance of stakes in demonstrating courage.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech addressing overcoming fear and taking risks in life.
You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.
There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break. - Amir
I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.
And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.
Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fiber called courage.
O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone.
I think one thing is that anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.
When I stopped drinking, it was only because I thought if I don't stop, I'm going to die.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.