Quotes for Friday from Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

[T]here is only one sin, only one. And that is the sin of theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that? ... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. ... There is no act more wretched than stealing. Page 19/20

A few times, I'd even come close to winning the winter tournament - once, I'd made it to the final three. But coming close wasn't the same as winning, was it? He had won because winners won and everyone else just went home. Page 59

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie. Page 61

For you a thousand times over. Page 71

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

it always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.
__________________
Read the Review Here.

Comments

  1. Geosi26 August 2011 at 11:04

    Wonderful lines, i think. I have finally laid hands on a copy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ImageNations26 August 2011 at 11:08

    where you got yours from? Mine was part of a book Amy of Amy Reads sent me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Geosi26 August 2011 at 11:19

    From Ghana book Trust. have you visited there before? There are tons and tons of books at cheaper rates.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ImageNations26 August 2011 at 11:33

    near IPS? Being there but mainly for textbooks. At the time most of their fiction were 'not my type'. It was mainly tiny romance and some others. Now that you say it, I'd pass there one of these days. Not far from where I stay actually.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Zibilee26 August 2011 at 14:54

    I remember reading this one and loving it, but being destroyed emotionally by the complex themes in the book. You've picked some great quotes. This is a book I need to reread.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ImageNations26 August 2011 at 16:23

    thanks Zibilee. The book is complex and interesting at all levels.

    ReplyDelete
  7. gamelmag27 August 2011 at 08:58

    The scenes are really very pulsating and moving. My favourite quote is "for you a thousand times over." Sheer loyalty and sincerity.

    ReplyDelete
  8. ImageNations27 August 2011 at 09:16

    and after this beautiful loyal statement the person un whom it was said betrayed the person who said it. Irony?

    ReplyDelete
  9. kuka27 August 2011 at 11:15

    Always a pleasure, when i intrude into these thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ImageNations27 August 2011 at 12:51

    thanks Dave

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Help Improve the Blog with a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10. Unexpected Joy at Dawn: My Reading

Image
Title: Unexpected Joy At Dawn Author: Alex Agyei-Agyiri Genre: Novel Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers Pages: 331 Year: 2004 Country: Ghana Unexpected Joy at Dawn is a story of two siblings, Nii and Mama Orojo, during the 1983 deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria under the Shehu Shagari government. Nii, who is a Nigerian by blood but a Ghanaian by birth, was left in Ghana by his parents as they made the tortuous journey to Nigeria when Ghana enacted the Aliens Compliance Order of 1969, which made every person living in Ghana without the required papers an alien. His name was changed to reflect the name of his adopted parents. After fourteen years of living in hardship in Ghana, which involves living in slums even though he was an Assistant Manager at a bank, taking on multiple jobs, not being able to bury a wife and being chased around by market women for purported 'fraud', he decided to go to Nigeria in search of his roots. Besides, he entertained the fears of being...
Read more

69. The Clothes of Nakedness by Benjamin Kwakye, A Review

Image
Title: The Clothes of Nakedness Author: Benjamin Kwakye Publishers: Heinemann African Writers Series Genre: Fiction/Novel/Class Pages: 212 Year of First Publication: 1998 Country: Ghana For the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners Reading Challenge Benjamin Kwakye 's novel The Clothes of Nakedness  is a compelling narrative directed at a Ghanaian audience, in particular. It reveals the economic hardships existing in our society; it also reveals the intricately woven relationships between the rich and the poor and how the 'seemingly' rich manipulate the poor to further that wealth-dom in this dual economic society where absolute riches exist side by side with abject poverty. The latter scenario is even more stark and pathetic if one knows that Nima and Kanda Estates, two neighbourhoods presented in the story, are real and not just fictional representation made concrete by Kwakye's brilliant mind. The story revolves around thr...
Read more

42. The Blinkards by Kobina Sekyi

Image
Title: The Blinkards, A Comedy and The Anglo-Fanti - A Short Story Author: Kobina Sekyi Genre: Play/Short Story Pages: 256 Publishers: Heinemann/Readwide ISBN: 978-0-435-92784-4 Year of Publication: 1974 (this edition, 1997) Country: Gold Coast (Now Ghana) Setting:  This book contains two stories: The Blinkards - a play and The Anglo-Fanti - a short story . Though the stories are from two different genres, one theme threads through them: the effect of absolute cultural osmosis or better still the consequences of swallowing an alien culture without much scrutiny, as happened in occupied countries popularly referred to by the occupiers as colonies (colonies of what? Ants? Bees?) Both stories took place in Cape Coast and the setting is very significant to the story. Apart from the author being a Fanti from Cape Coast, Cape Coast was the first point of introduction to colonial rule. As a seaport city, it was the first town that was brought under colonial rule; hence ...
Read more