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" Kabul was very popular with the hippies in the Sixties and Seventies. It was very quiet and peaceful. "
Khaled Hosseini
Sixties
Peaceful
Seventies
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" American high school culture was impenetrable to me, and very cliquey: you had the Hispanics, the African Americans, the surfer guys and the goths and the immigrants. The jocks and the surfers got the girls. By the time I'd got to grips with it, I'd graduated. "
Khaled Hosseini
Me
American
Culture
" I find myself drawn to that period where children are about to leave childhood behind. When you're 12 years old, you still have one foot in childhood; the other is poised to enter a completely new stage of life. Your innocent understanding of the world moves towards something messier and more complicated, and once it does you can never go back. "
Khaled Hosseini
Life
World
Myself
" I'm fascinated by the way early experiences haunt and revisit you, remain present in your life for decades and decades - they can even shape who you ultimately become. "
Khaled Hosseini
Become
You
Way
" Afghanistan is a rural nation, where 85 percent of people live in the countryside. And out there it's very, very conservative, very tribal - almost medieval. "
Khaled Hosseini
Nation
Conservative
Live
" I grew up in a society with a very ancient and strong oral storytelling tradition. I was told stories, as a child, by my grandmother, and my father as well. "
Khaled Hosseini
Stories
Father
Strong
" Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period. "
Khaled Hosseini
Kept
More
Read
" I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. "
Khaled Hosseini
People
Got
Book
" I lay no claim, it should be clear, to being a historian. So in my books, the intimate and personal have been intertwined inextricably with the broad and historical. "
Khaled Hosseini
Historical
Clear
Personal
" I - and, I suspect, millions of Americans like me, Republicans and Democrats alike - couldn't care less about Obama's middle name or the ridiculous six-degrees-of-separation game that is the William Ayers non-issue. "
Khaled Hosseini
Me
Name
Care
" 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. "
Khaled Hosseini
Light
Roots
Same
" I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter. "
Khaled Hosseini
Moment
Learning
School
" For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. "
Khaled Hosseini
Represent
Burden
Culture
" There's no excuse for the macro corruption, but Afghanistan was always an informal society with a weak central government. "
Khaled Hosseini
Government
Corruption
Always
" 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. "
Khaled Hosseini
School
Day
Writing
" Ultimately, my books are not about the politics, although the toil and the struggle and the wars in Afghanistan have a significant impact on the lives of my characters. "
Khaled Hosseini
Politics
Toil
Struggle
" Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read. "
Khaled Hosseini
Things
Never
Learn
" 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. "
Khaled Hosseini
World
Think
Voice
" My books are love stories at core, really. But I am interested in manifestations of love beyond the traditional romantic notion. In fact, I seem not particularly inclined to write romantic love as a narrative motive or as an easy source of happiness for my characters. "
Khaled Hosseini
Easy
Romantic
Love
" You must not believe your own PR; it would be grotesque. "
Khaled Hosseini
Your
You
Would
" The jury is out as to whether the Afghans are up to the task of protecting their people. "
Khaled Hosseini
Jury
Whether
Up
" Writing for me is largely about rewriting. "
Khaled Hosseini
Me
Rewriting
Writing
" 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. "
Khaled Hosseini
Own
Surprise
Way
" In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create. "
Khaled Hosseini
Think
Men
Women
" You have to be able to interact with people whose politics you disagree with. "
Khaled Hosseini
Whose
Disagree
People
" I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time. "
Khaled Hosseini
Come
Think
Time
" I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting. "
Khaled Hosseini
Write
Find
I Write
" My wife is my in-home editor and reads everything I write. "
Khaled Hosseini
Wife
Editor
Everything
" Everything for me starts very small and snowballs. So I rarely start with the grand idea and find a place for it and narrow down. It's, really, just start small, and as I'm writing it, I begin to see - sometimes to my own surprise - what's unfolding and what's blooming. "
Khaled Hosseini
Start
Writing
Surprise
" 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. "
Khaled Hosseini
Back
Think
Red
" It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all. "
Khaled Hosseini
Fame
Life
Kind