Ala The Kite Runner

Front 1

'I wished he'd give me...

Back 1

the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night.'

Front 2

'I wondered how and when...

Back 2

I'd become capable of causing this kind of pain.'

Front 3

'I was glad that someone knew...

Back 3

me for who I really was; I was tired of pretending.'

Front 4

'he says every price...

Back 4

has a tax.'

Front 5

'War doesn't negate decency...

Back 5

it demands it, even more than in times of peace.'

Front 6

'Baba loved the idea of America...

Back 6

it was living in America that gave him an ulcer.'

Front 7

'What kind of country is this?

Back 7

No one trusts anybody.'

Front 8

'I thought of all the trucks, train sets and bikes...

Back 8

He'd bought me in Kabul. Now America. One last gift for Amir.'

Front 9

'Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me...

Back 9

A city of harelipped ghosts.'

Front 10

'I was fully aware of...

Back 10

the Afghan double standard that favoured my gender.'

Front 11

'I had won the...

Back 11

genetic lottery that had determined my sex.'

Front 12

'I think the only thing he loved as much as his late wife...

Back 12

was his late country.'

Front 13

'Every women needed a...

Back 13

husband, even if he did silence the song in her.'

Front 14

'Hassan taught him to read and write...

Back 14

his son was not going to grow up illiterate like he had.'

Front 15

'children are fragile, Amir jan...

Back 15

Kabul is already full of broken children and I don't want Sohrab to become another.'

Front 16

'A boy who won't stand up for himself...

Back 16

becomes a man who can't stand up to anything.'

Front 17

'All that a man had back then, all that he was...

Back 17

was his honour, his name.'

Front 18

'I feel like a...

Back 18

tourist in my own country.'

Front 19

'Returning to Kabul was like running into...

Back 19

an old forgotten friend and seeing life hadn't been good to him.'

Front 20

'Ethnic cleansing...

Back 20

I like it. I like the sound of it.'

Front 21

'Now I was the one under the microscope...

Back 21

The one who had to prove my worthiness. I deserved this.'

Front 22

'You will never again refer to him as Hazara boy

Back 22

in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.'

Front 23

'Because when spring comes it melts the snow one flake at a time...

Back 23

and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.'

Front 24

'Hassan never...

Back 24

denied me anything.'

Front 25

'most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district...

Back 25

a new and affluent neighbourhood'

'rose bushes'

Front 26

'A modest little...

Back 26

mud hut, where Hassan lived with his father.'

Front 27

Sanaubar has a 'dishonourable reputation'. She 'tempted...

Back 27

countless men into sin.'

Front 28

'An entire chapter dedicated to...

Back 28

Hassan's people!'

Front 29

'Pashtuns had quelled...

Back 29

them with unspeakable violence.'

Front 30

Ali finds 'his joy, his antidote...

Back 30

the moment Sanaubar had given birth to Hassan.'

Front 31

Baba 'once wrestled...

Back 31

a black bear.'

Front 32

'I can never tell...

Back 32

Baba from the bear.'

Front 33

'Attention shifted to him...

Back 33

like sunflowers turning to the sun.'

Front 34

'There is only one sin, only one. And that is...

Back 34

theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.'

Front 35

'There is something...

Back 35

missing in that boy.'

Front 36

'I never thought of Hassan...

Back 36

and me as friends.'

Front 37

'warm Coca-Cola and rosewater...

Back 37

ice cream topped with crushed pistachios.'

Front 38

'I'd tease him, expose his ignorance...

Back 38

I would always feel guilty about it later.'

Front 39

'I never got to finish that sentence.

Back 39

Because suddenly Afghanistan changed forever.'

Front 40

'Assef's blue eyes glinted with...

Back 40

a light not entirely sane.'

Front 41

Assef on Hitler: 'Now, there was a leader. A great leader.

Back 41

A man with vision.'

Front 42

'how he'd accepted the fact that he'd grow old in...

Back 42

that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had.'

Front 43

'three o'clock...

Back 43

the sun had slipped behind [the clouds]'

Front 44

'I just watched.

Back 44

Paralysed.'

Front 45

'It was the look...

Back 45

of the lamb.'

Front 46

'I imagine the animal sees that its imminent demise...

Back 46

is for a higher purpose.'

Front 47

'Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay,

Back 47

the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price?'

Front 48

'You bring me shame.'

Back 48

'This is his home and we're his family.'

Front 49

'grinning, looming over both,

Back 49

his arms resting on their shoulders.'

Front 50

'A havoc of scrap and rubble...

Back 50

littered the alley.'

Front 51

'Hassan's brown...

Back 51

corduroy pants.'

Front 52

'I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice;...

Back 52

I was a liar, a cheat and a thief.'

Front 53

'This was Hassan's final...

Back 53

sacrifice for me.'

Front 54

Baba (about the theft of the watch):

Back 54

'I forgive you.'

Front 55

'You're the brother I never had...

Back 55

pleading... He cried... the pain in his plea, the fear.'

Front 56

'Life here is...

Back 56

impossible for us now.'

Front 57

'It scared me a little, seeing a growing man sob.

Back 57

Fathers weren't supposed to cry.'

Front 58

'You couldn't trust anyone in Kabul anymore...

Back 58

they'd taught children to spy on their parents.'

Front 59

Kamal 'had withered...

Back 59

hollow look.'

Front 60

'Someone was screaming. No, not screaming.

Back 60

Wailing.'

'My boy won't breathe.'

Front 61

'My Swap Meet...

Back 61

Princess.'

Front 62

'The man is a Pashtun to the root...

Back 62

He has nang and namoos... Honour and Pride.'

Front 63

'I was so proud of her, and I felt...

Back 63

I'd done something really worthwhile, you know?'

Front 64

'When the pounds kept shedding. And shedding. When his cheeks...

Back 64

hollowed. And his temples melted. And his eyes receded in their sockets.'

Front 65

Baba to Amir on his wedding day: 'Handsome...

Back 65

It's the happiest day of my life.'

Front 66

'There is no...

Back 66

pain tonight.'

Front 67

'And I remember wondering if Hassan too had married.

Back 67

And if so, whose face he had seen in the mirror under the veil?'

Front 68

'They filled the parking spots...

Back 68

at the mosque in Hayward.'

Front 69

'Baba had wrestled bears his whole life...

Back 69

wife... son... homeland... Poverty. Indignity.'

Front 70

'My whole life, I had been 'Baba's son'.

Back 70

Now he was gone.'

Front 71

'Baba couldn't show me the way anymore;

Back 71

I'd have to find it on my own.'

Front 72

'It's so ******* unfair.'

Back 72

'Just forget it.'

Front 73

'I wiped a tear from her jawline, just above her birthmark...

Back 73

with the pad of my thumb.'

Front 74

'I wanted to be just like Baba...

Back 74

and I wanted to be nothing like him.'

Front 75

'this adoption... thing, I'm not so sure...

Back 75

it's for us Afghans.'

Front 76

'Blood is a powerful thing, bachem,...

Back 76

never forget that.'

Front 77

'I don't want to go to Kabul.

Back 77

I can't.'

Front 78

'A way to end

Back 78

the cycle.'

Front 79

'the carcass of an...

Back 79

old burned-out Soviet tank.'

Front 80

'You've always been...

Back 80

a tourist here. You just didn't know it.'

Front 81

'They hadn't been staring at the watch at all.

Back 81

They'd been staring at my food.'

Front 82

'I planted a fistful...

Back 82

of crumpled money under a mattress.'

Front 83

'I used to teach...

Back 83

at the university.'

Front 84

'We are here today to...

Back 84

carry out Sharia.'

Front 85

'John Lennon walked...

Back 85

back to the mound.'

Front 86

'Usually he'll take a girl...

Back 86

But not always.'

Front 87

'What happens to the children he takes?'

Back 87

'Sometimes they come back.'

Front 88

'Nothing that you remember...

Back 88

has survived. Best to forget.'

Front 89

'Public justice is the greatest kind of show, my brother...

Back 89

education en masse.'

Front 90

'Let the bullets fly, free of guilt and remorse,

Back 90

knowing you are virtuous, good and decent.'

Front 91

'The boy had his father's round moon face...'

Back 91

Repetition of 'the face'

Front 92

'His hands slid down the child's back, then up, felt under his armpits...

Back 92

The man's hands slid up and down the boy's belly. Up and down, slowly, gently.'

Front 93

'Every night the commandant, a half-Hazara, half-Uzbek thing who smelled like a rotting donkey...'

Back 93

'I was screaming and screaming and he kept kicking me.'

Front 94

'The words spilled suddenly and unexpectedly...

Back 94

came out before I could yank the leash.'

Front 95

'I took Sohrab's hand...

Back 95

His fingers moved, laced themselves with mine.'

Front 96

'I don't know if I gave Assef a good fight...

Back 96

I had never so much as thrown a punch in my entire life.'

Front 97

Repetition of 'Sohrab screaming.'

Back 97

Emphasis on impact of war on innocents.

Front 98

'My body was broken...

Back 98

but I felt healed. Healed at last.'

Front 99

'Sohrab had the slingshot pointed...

Back 99

to Assef's face.'

Front 100

'fresh tears pooling in his green eyes,

Back 100

mixing with mascara.'

'mascara' put on lamb at Eid before the sacrifice.

Front 101

'He [Sohrab] took my hand.

Back 101

Helped me to my feet.'

Front 102

'Baba is sitting on the bear's chest, his fingers digging in its snout.

Back 102

He looks up at me and I see. He's me. I am wrestling the bear.'

Front 103

'The worst laceration was on your upper lip...

Back 103

there will be a scar. That is unavoidable.'

Front 104

'What you did was wrong, Amir jan, but do not forget that you were a boy when...

Back 104

it happened. A troubled little boy.'

Front 105

'When he saw you, he saw himself. And...

Back 105

his guilt.'

Front 106

'Your father, like you,

Back 106

was a tortured soul.'

Front 107

'true redemption is...

Back 107

when guilt leads to good.'

Front 108

'I wanted to pull him close, hold him, tell him the world...

Back 108

had been unkind to him, not the other way around.'

Front 109

'I'm so dirty...

Back 109

and full of sin.'

Front 110

'What had happened in that room with Assef...

Back 110

had irrevocably bound us.'

Front 111

'My hands are stained with Hassan's blood;

Back 111

I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of his boy too.'

Front 112

'I feel my throat clamping.'

Back 112

'I need air.'

Front 113

'I thought I'd read you some of it.'

Back 113

Shift in Amir's attitude

Front 114

'Tired of everything.'

Back 114

'I want my old life back.'

Front 115

'I wonder how long before...

Back 115

Sohrab smiled again.'

Front 116

'In the end, Sohrab never accepted my offer.

Back 116

Nor did he decline it.'

Front 117

'Like dull wallpaper,

Back 117

Sohrab had blended into the background.'

Front 118

'Did I ever tell you your father was the best...

Back 118

kite runner in Wazir Akbar Khan?'

Front 119

'suddenly I was twelve again...

Back 119

and all the old instincts came rushing back.'

Front 120

'I'd already slipped him...

Back 120

Hassan's trick.'

Front 121

'Do you want me to...

Back 121

run that kite for you?'

Front 122

'A grown man...

Back 122

running with a swarm of screaming children.'