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" The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems. "

Khaled Hosseini

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" Afghan people are just so tired of war. "

Khaled Hosseini

" For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

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

Khaled Hosseini

" The Taliban's acts of cultural vandalism - the most infamous being the destruction of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas - had a devastating effect on Afghan culture and the artistic scene. The Taliban burned countless films, VCRs, music tapes, books, and paintings. They jailed filmmakers, musicians, painters, and sculptors. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

" All stories I write are compulsive. Anything I've ever written was because I don't have a choice. I write stories because I can't wait to tell it, I can't wait to see how it ends. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

" In my 20s, life seemed endless. At 49, I've had a chance to see how dark life can be, and I am far more aware of the constraints of time than when I wrote 'The Kite Runner.' I realise there is only a limited number of things I can do. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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. "

Khaled Hosseini

" You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true. And yet, by the time this idea passes through the different filters of your mind, and into your hand, and onto the page or computer screen - it becomes distorted, and it's been diminished. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

" I will say that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot of medical things that happen. A hip fracture, three different kinds of lung cancer, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and so on. "

Khaled Hosseini

" I give novels as gifts, and there is nothing I like to receive more as a gift. "

Khaled Hosseini

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

Khaled Hosseini

" 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. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

" Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought. "

Khaled Hosseini

" I have this almost pathological fear of boring the reader. "

Khaled Hosseini

" The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me. "

Khaled Hosseini

" For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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

" Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight. "

Khaled Hosseini

" My parents were reasonably affluent in Kabul. In the States, we were on welfare. My mom became a waitress, and my dad became a driving instructor. That part of the American immigrant experience applies to people of any nationality. "

Khaled Hosseini

" The experience of writing 'The Kite Runner' is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again. "

Khaled Hosseini

" I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting. "

Khaled Hosseini

" 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. "

Khaled Hosseini

" I have a particular disdain for Islamic extremism, and of course, in both 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' that's obvious. "

Khaled Hosseini