Kite Runner Baba Quotes

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace." - Baba

When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "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. Do you see?

I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 —and all that followed— was already laid in those first words.

Baba dropped the stack of food stamps on her desk. "Thank you but I don't want," Baba said. "I work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dobbins, but I don't like it free money."...Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a tumor.

I throw my makeshift jai-namaz, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I bow to the west. Then I remember I haven’t prayed for over fifteen years. I have long forgotten the words. But it doesn’t matter, I will utter those few words I still remember: La illaha ila Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. There’s no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there’s a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid with its bright diamond lights, and towering minarets. There’s a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need, I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is. [...] I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine, my lips are salty with the tears trickling down my face. I feel the eyes of everyone in this corridor on me and still I bow to the west. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I'd always feared they would.

I know. I know. But he's always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dream." "And?" "I wasn't like that." Baba sounded frustrated, almost angry. Rahim Khan laughed. "Children aren't colouring books. You don't get to fill them with your favourite colours.

Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres.

Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people’s lives. My whole life, I had been “Baba’s son.” Now he was gone. Baba couldn’t show me the way anymore; I’d have to find it on my own. The thought of it terrified me.

He loathed Jimmy Carter, whom he called a “big-toothed cretin.” In 1980, when we were still in Kabul, the U.S. announced it would be boycotting the Olympic Games in Moscow. “Wah wah!” Baba exclaimed with disgust. “Brezhnev is massacring Afghans and all that peanut eater can say is I won’t come swim in your pool.

That night, I waited until Baba fell asleep, and then folded a blanket. I used it as a prayer rug. Bowing my head to the ground, I recited half-forgotten verses from the Koran-verses the mullah had made us commit to memory in Kabul-and asked for kindness from a god I wasn't sure existed. I envied the mullah now, envied his faith and certainty.

Prinsip Baba dalam menyelenggarakan pesta adalah: Bukan pesta kalau kau tidak mengundang semua orang di seluruh dunia.

I watched Baba's car pull away from the curb, taking with it the person whose first spoken word had been my name.

Then I’ll tell you,” Baba said, “but first understand this and understand it now, Amir: You’ll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots.” “You mean Mullah Fatiullah Khan?

The previous year, Baba had surprised Hassan with a leather cowboy hat just like the one Clint Eastwood wore in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—which had unseated The Magnificent Seven as our favorite Western.

I want to scream again, and I remember that last time I felt this way, riding with Baba in the tank of the fuel truck, buried in the dark with other refugees. I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my leg blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away. There will be no other reality tonight.

I promised myself that I would talk to her before the summer was over, but schools reopened, the leaves reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in and wakened Baba's joints, baby leaves sprouted once more, and I still hadn't had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye.

I loved wintertime in Kabul. I loved it for the soft pattering of snow against my window at night, for the way fresh snow crunched under my black rubber boots, for the warmth of the cast-iron stove as the wind screeched through the yards, the streets. But mostly because, as the trees froze and ice sheathed the roads, the chill between Baba and me thawed a little. And the reason for that was the kites. Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper thin slice of intersection between those spheres.

I am indebted to the following colleagues for their advice, assistance, or support: Dr. Alfred Lerner, Dori Vakis, Robin Heck, Dr. Todd Dray, Dr. Robert Tull, and Dr. Sandy Chun. Thanks also to Lynette Parker of East San Jose Community Law Center for her advice about adoption procedures, and to Mr. Daoud Wahab for sharing his experiences in Afghanistan with me. I am grateful to my dear friend Tamim Ansary for his guidance and support and to the gang at the San Francisco Writers Workshop for their feedback and encouragement. I want to thank my father, my oldest friend and the inspiration for all that is noble in Baba; my mother who prayed for me and did nazr at every stage of this book’s writing; my aunt for buying me books when I was young. Thanks go out to Ali, Sandy, Daoud

I looked at the photo. "Your father was a man torn between two halves," Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son. I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, 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.

Aku dan Baba tinggal di rumah yang sama, namun dalam dimensi yang berbeda. Layang-layang adalah lembaran setipis kertas yang bisa menyatukan kedua dimensi itu.

Mungkin aku berdiri di tempat itu kurang dari sepuluh menit, namun, hingga hari ini, aku merasa bahwa menit-menit yang berlalu pada saat itu adalah menit-menit yang terpanjang dalam hidupku. Detik-detik berjalan dengan sangat lambat, jedanya bagaikan seumur hidup. Udara terasa berat, lembab, hampir-hampir padat. Aku bernapas menghirup bata. Baba terus menatapku, dan tidak menawarkan diri untuk membaca ceritaku.

Aku sering memuja Baba begitu rupa, dengan intensitas mendekati pemujaanku kepada Tuhan. Tapi saat itu, aku berharap aku bisa menoreh pembuluh nadiku dan mengeluarkan seluruh darah terkutuk Baba dari dalam tubuhku.

Baba melihat dunia ini dengan sudut pandang hitam putih. Dan dia dia harus menentukan mana yang hitam dan mana yang putih. Kita tak akan mungkin mencintai seseorang yang hidup dengan pandangan seperti ini tanpa merasa takut padanya. Bahkan mungkin sedikit membencinya.

Kerim genzini temizledi, başını öne eğdi. Sonra, açıkladı: Asker, genç hanımla kamyonun arka tarafında yarım saat baş başa kalmak istiyordu. Genç kadın atkıyı yüzüne çekti. Ağlamaya başladı. Kocasının kucağındaki bebek de öyle. Kocanın beti benzi attı; bu yüz şimdi gökyüzünde asılı duran ay kadar soluktu. .... Baba bir silkinişte elimden kurtuldu, bacağını çekti. İri gövdesi, ayışığmı kapamıştı. "Bu adama bir şey sormak istiyorum" dedi. Kerim'le konuşuyor ama doğruca Rus askere bakıyordu. "Utanma duygusunun nerede olduğunu sor." İkisi konuştular. "Savaştayız" diyor. "Savaşta utanma olmazmış." "Yanıldığını söyle. Savaş onuru ortadan kaldırmaz. Tam tersine, barış zamanından çok daha fazla onur gerektirir. Sayfa: 137

For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his.

For you, a thousand times over." "Amir and Hassan. The Sultans of Kabul." "That was the night I became an insomniac." "For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his." "Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals all the details for itself." "He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footsteps. He moved as if not to stir the air around him. Mostly, he slept." "It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.

When you kill a man, you steal a life,” Baba said. “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. Do you see?

soon after we arrived in the U.S., Baba started grumbling about American flies. He'd sit at the kitchen table with his flyswatter, watch the flies darting from wall to wall, buzzing here, buzzing there, harried and rushed. "In this country, even flies are pressed for time," he'd groan.

And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last.

» Vi kan sticka ut en sväng«, sa Baba. En inbjudan, men bara halvhjärtat framförd. »Snare kanske. Jag är lite trött«, sa jag. »Visst«, sa Baba. »Baba?« »]a?« »Tack för fyrverkeriet«, sa jag. Ett tack, men bara halvhjärtat framfört.

Det var vad jag tvingade mig själv att tro. Faktum var att jag ville vara feg, för alternativet, det verkliga skälet till att jag flydde, var att Assef hade rätt: ingenting var gratis här i världen. Kanske var Hassan det pris jag måste betala, det lamm jag måste slakta, för att vinna Baba.

I remember he [Baba] said to me, 'Rahim, a boy who won't stand p for himself becomes a man who can't stand up for anything.' I wonder is that what you've become?

My eyes returned to our suitcases. They made me sad for Baba. After everything he’d built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life: one disappointing son and two suitcases.

Here is another cliché my creative writing teacher would have scoffed at: like father, like son. But it was true, wasn’t it? As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us.

there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that? "When you kill a man, you steal a life," Baba said. "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. Do you see?

I remembered something Baba had said about Pashtuns once. 'We may be hardheaded and I know we're far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me that there's no one you'd rather have at your side than a Pashtun.

Có lẽ tôi đứng đó chưa đầy một phút, nhưng đến ngày hôm nay, nó là cái phút dài nhất của đời tôi. Những giây đồng hồ nặng nhọc trôi đi, giây này cách giây kia một thời gian vĩnh cửu. Không khí trở nên nặng nề, ẩm thấp, gần như đặc lại. Tôi như đang thở ra những viên gạch. Baba tiếp tục nhìn tôi trừng trừng và không bảo tôi đọc truyện.

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name.