Khaled Hosseini Quotes

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Khaled Hosseini

Profession : Novelist

Birth : March 4, 1965

There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.

Khaled Hosseini

I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.

Khaled Hosseini

Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

Khaled Hosseini

In Afghanistan, you don't understand yourself solely as an individual. You understand yourself as a son, a brother, a cousin to somebody, an uncle to somebody. You are part of something bigger than yourself.

Khaled Hosseini

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

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

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

My books are about ordinary people, like you, me, people on the street, people who really have an expectation of reasonable happiness in life, want their life to have a sense of security and predictability, who want to belong to something bigger than them, who want love and affection in their life, who want a good future for the children.

Khaled Hosseini

Kabul was very popular with the hippies in the Sixties and Seventies. It was very quiet and peaceful.

Khaled Hosseini

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

There's nothing easy about writing. It's always difficult. It's always a struggle.

Khaled Hosseini

My wife is my in-home editor and reads everything I write.

Khaled Hosseini

The only two places where I can read for long stretches are in airplanes and in bed at nighttime.

Khaled Hosseini

I don't think she is underappreciated, certainly not among writers, but Alice Munro is the classic underappreciated writer among readers. It is almost a cliche now to wonder why this living legend is not more widely read.

Khaled Hosseini

I read actual physical books and have thus far avoided the electronic lure.

Khaled Hosseini

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

Khaled Hosseini

A Western-style democracy in Afghanistan is a dream. I don't see that as a reality anytime soon. But I think some form of representative political process is not that far-fetched.

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

I spent a lot of winters in my childhood flying kites with my brother, with my cousins, with friends in the neighborhood. It's what we did in the winter. Schools close down. There was not much to do.

Khaled Hosseini

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

Khaled Hosseini