Khaled Hosseini writes as I wish I could;  simple prose and natural dialogue convey his thoughtful themes and powerful stories.  A Thousand Splendid Suns is a heartbreaking pleasure to read.

Perhaps most impressively, Hosseini somehow manages to teach the reader about the complex politics of Afghanistan along the way — all without exposition or blatant asides.  The back-cover quotes the Los Angeles Times saying, “[Hosseini] offers us the sweep of historic upheavals narrated with the intimacy of family and village life.”  If only history focused on the people more often.

Hosseini, more than other authors I can think of, frames his books like songs, with a sort of verse-chorus-verse-chorus mentality.  He repeats certain phrases and mirrors certain events throughout the book, joining disparate sections and reinforcing central themes.  In The Kite Runner, ‘For you, a thousand times over’ took on a refrain-like feeling … and A Thousand Splendid Sunshas similar moments, with events, actions, and phrases taking on a deeper meaning.  Hosseini doesn’t hide these repetitions nor does he push them on the reader; in fact I would bet that a more thorough reading would reveal many more parallels than I initially caught.

The rest of this post is dedicated to quotes that stuck out to me while reading the book.  I’m not going to explain why I’ve chosen them and, further, I warn you that they contain spoilers for those that haven’t read the book yet.

• “Learn this now, and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.” [7]
• “Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure.” [17]
• “And I want you to invite my brothers and sisters, too.  I want to meet them.  I want us all to go together.  It’s what I want.” [25]
• And as her heart pounded, her mind wondered what excuse he would use that night to pounce on her. There was always something, some minor thing that would infuriate him, because no matter what she did to please him, no matter how thoroughly she submitted to his wants and demands, it wasn’t enough. [90]
• She said the Soviet Union was the best nation in the world, along with Afghanistan. It was kind to its workers, and its people were all equal.  Everyone in the Soviet Union was happy and friendly, unlike America, where crime made people afraid to leave their homes.  And everyone in Afghanistan would be happy too, she said, once the antiprogressives, the backward bandits, were defeated. [101]
• A society has no chance of success if its women are undereducated. [103]
• Sometimes Laila wondered why Mammy had even bothered having her. People, she believed now, shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if they’d already given away all their love to their old ones. [107]
• She liked how they started each meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt, how they squeezed sour oranges on everything, even their yogurt, and how they made small, harmless jokes at each other’s expense. [117]
• The only enemy an Afghan cannot defeat is himself. [121]
• “We’ll take care of her Laila jan,” one of the women said with an air of self-importance.  Laila had been to funerals before where she had seen women like this, women who relished all things that had to do with death, official consolers who let no one trespass on their self-appointed duties. [124]
• “I listen to that clock ticking in the hallway. Then I think of all the ticks, all the minutes, all the hours and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can’t breathe then, like someone’s stepping on my heart, Laila.  I get so weak. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.” [129]
• Shewould never leave her mark on Mammy’s heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy’s heart was like a pallid beach where Laila’s footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed. [130]
• “Some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you just have to see and feel. [134]
• For Mammy, he would brush aside this daydream of his the way he flicked specks of flour from his coat when he got home from work. [136]
• Watching the kiss, Laila felt strangely conspicuous all at once.  She became intensely aware of her heart thumping, of the blood thudding in her ears, of the shape of Tariq beside her, tightening up, becoming still. The kiss dragged on.  It seemed of utmost urgency to Laila, suddenly, that she not stir or make a noise. [141]
• “If it isn’t Laili and Majnoon,” referring to the star-crossed lovers of Nezami’s popular twelfth-century romantic poem - a Farsi version of Romeo and Juliet, Babi said, though he added that Nezami had written his tale of ill-fated lovers four centuries before Shakespeare. [148]
• How could he leave her? She slapped him. Then she slapped him again and pulled at his hair, and he had to take her by the wrists, and he was saying something she couldn’t make out, he was saying it softly, reasonably, and, somehow, they ended up brow to brow, nose to nose, and she could feel the heat of his breath on her lips again.  And when, suddenly, he leaned in, she did too. [164]
• One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls. [172]
• Mariam had never before spoken in this manner, had never stated her will so forcefully.  It ought to have felt exhilirating, but the girl’s eyes had teared up and her face was drooping, and what satisfaction Mariam had found from this outburst felt meager, somehow illicit. [202]
• It wasn’t the fear of bleeding to death that made her drop the spoke, or even the idea that the act was damnable - which she suspected it was.  Laila dropped the spoke because she could not accept what the Mujahideen readily had: that sometimes in war innocent life had to be taken.  her war was against Rasheed. The baby was blameless. And there had been enough killing already.  Laila had seen enough killing of innocents caught in the cross fire of enemies. [253]
• I thought I was immune, you know, safe. as though there was some accountant up there somewhere, a guy with a pencil tucked behind his ear who kept track of these things, who tallied up, and he’d look down and say, ‘Yes, yes, he can have this, we’ll let it go. He’s paid some dues already, this one.’ [300]
• Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her.  But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it. … One last time, Mariam did as she was told. [329]
• In the middle of the night, when Laila woke up thirsty, she found their hands still clamped together, in the white-knuckle, anxious way of children clutching balloon strings. [335]
• “I’m sorry,” Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.  Laila thinks of her own life and all that has happened to her, and she is astonished that she too has survived, that she is alive and sitting in this taxi listening to this man’s story. [350]
• In a few years, this little girl will be a woman who will make small demands on her life, who will never burden others, who will never let on that she too has had sorrows, disappointments, dreams that have been ridiculed. A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washed over her. [355]
• Laila has moved on. Because in the end she knows that’s all she can do. That and hope. [363]

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