How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In school, we used to play a game called Sherjangi, or "Battle of the Poems." The Farsi teacher moderated it and it went something like this: You recited a verse from a poem and your opponent had sixty seconds to reply with a verse that began with the same letter that ended yours. Everyone in my class wanted me on their team, because by the time I was eleven, I could recite dozens of verses from Khayyám, Hãfez, or Rumi's famous Masnawi. One time, I took on the whole class and won. I told Baba about it later that night, but he just nodded, muttered, "Good."
That was how I escaped my father's aloofness, in my dead mother's books. That and Hassan, of course. I read everything, Rumi, Hãfez, Saadi, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Ian Fleming. When I had finished my mother's books – not the boring history ones, I was never much into those, but the novels, the epics – I started spending my allowance on books. I bought one a week from the bookstore near Cinema Park, and stored them in cardboard boxes when I ran out of shelf room. (3.38-39)
Literature and writing play a more important role in The Kite Runner than you might think. Hosseini mentions books and big names occasionally, but not often enough to construct a neon sign reading AMIR IS GOING TO BECOME A WRITER. But the fact that Amir does choose to become a writer is very important. It's tied to his complicated relationship with Baba. As this passage points out, writing and reading become an escape from Baba's coldness. However, as we gather later in the novel, Amir writes about Baba in his own works of fiction. So, later in the novel, writing doesn't allow Amir to simply escape his father's distance but instead helps him enter it and understand it.
Quote #2
That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born, perhaps even the moment he had been conceived in Sanaubar's unwelcoming womb – after all, what use did a servant have for the written word? But despite his illiteracy, or maybe because of it, Hassan was drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a secret world forbidden to him. I read him poems and stories, sometimes riddles – though I stopped reading those when I saw he was far better at solving them than I was. (4.12)
Here, literature isn't sugar and spice and everything nice. Amir actually uses his mastery of reading to belittle Hassan. Even though Hassan sees the beauty of literature (like Amir), Amir actually stops reading Hassan riddles when the activity no longer confirms Amir's superior status. Sometimes we think of literature as self-exploration, or a way to bring human beings together. Not here, pal. Literature is power. And Amir uses its power against Hassan – who, unlike Amir, seems to have Baba's love.
Quote #3
One day, in July 1973, I played another little trick on Hassan. I was reading to him, and suddenly I strayed from the written story. I pretended I was reading from the book, flipping pages regularly, but I had abandoned the text altogether, taken over the story, and made up my own. Hassan, of course, was oblivious to this. To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys. (4.25)
Like in the previous quote, Amir uses his literacy to demonstrate his power over Hassan (see 4.12). But Hosseini might be up to something else here, too. Amir begins to insert his own stories into the texts he's supposedly reading to Hassan. Zoom out to the novel as a whole. To whom is Amir telling his story? Does The Kite Runner read a little bit like a confession? Is Hassan (along with Baba) Amir's audience? Is Amir, through the novel, trying to explain his betrayal – and later redemption – to Hassan?
Quote #4
As always, it was Rahim Khan who rescued me. He held out his hand and favored me with a smile that had nothing feigned about it. "May I have it, Amir jan? I would very much like to read it." Baba hardly ever used the term of endearment jan when he addressed me. [...]
An hour later, as the evening sky dimmed, the two of them drove off in my father's car to attend a party. On his way out, Rahim Khan hunkered before me and handed me my story and another folded piece of paper. He flashed a smile and winked. "For you. Read it later." Then he paused and added a single word that did more to encourage me to pursue writing than any compliment any editor has ever paid me. That word was Bravo. (4.43-45)
Thank goodness for Rahim Khan. He does more to encourage Amir's writing than Baba ever does. In fact, Baba more or less ignores Amir's interest in writing until Amir decides to major in English in the United States. But – we must add – all this sets up the very moving scene when Soraya reads Amir's stories to Baba. Of course, Rahim Khan could never replace Baba (who is larger than life throughout Amir's boyhood), but in what ways is Rahim Khan a second father to Amir? In what ways is Rahim Khan a better father than Baba? Or does Rahim Khan remain only a literary mentor?
Quote #5
I turned thirteen that summer of 1976, Afghanistan's next to last summer of peace and anonymity. Things between Baba and me were already cooling off again. I think what started it was the stupid comment I'd made the day we were planting tulips, about getting new servants. I regretted saying it – I really did – but I think even if I hadn't, our happy little interlude would have come to an end. Maybe not quite so soon, but it would have. By the end of the summer, the scraping of spoon and fork against the plate had replaced dinner table chatter and Baba had resumed retreating to his study after supper. And closing the door. I'd gone back to thumbing through Hãfez and Khayyám, gnawing my nails down to the cuticles, writing stories. I kept the stories in a stack under my bed, keeping them just in case, though I doubted Baba would ever again ask me to read them to him. (8.94)
Writing becomes a very complex activity here. Amir stacks his short stories under the bed, hoping Baba will someday want to hear them. Amir also compares writing to a nervous habit like biting his nails. Is writing really an anxiety-based habit? What does Amir have to be anxious about at this point in the story? Why would Amir think writing could help his relationship with his father?
Quote #6
The other present Baba gave me – and he didn't wait around for me to open this one – was a wristwatch. It had a blue face with gold hands in the shape of lightning bolts. I didn't even try it on. I tossed it on the pile of toys in the corner. The only gift I didn't toss on that mound was Rahim Khan's leather-bound notebook. That was the only one that didn't feel like blood money. (9.11)
Amir feels like all his father's gifts are "blood money" because, as he says, "Baba would have never thrown me a party like that if I hadn't won the tournament" (9.1). And to win the tournament – or at least to get a hold of the blue kite – Amir betrays Hassan. So, in a way, Baba's gifts result from Amir's regrettable act, his abandonment of Hassan. To earn Baba's love, Amir has to betray Hassan and thus Amir can't revel in his father's love without feeling guilty. That's why Rahim Khan's gift is so special: Rahim Khan's love isn't dependent on Amir's victory in the kite tournament. How does Rahim Khan's gift encourage Amir to become a writer?
Quote #7
"I think I'll major in English," I said. I winced inside, waiting for his reply.
[Baba:] "English?"
[Amir:] "Creative writing."
He considered this. Sipped his tea. "Stories, you mean. You'll make up stories." I looked down at my feet.
[Baba:] "They pay for that, making up stories?"
[Amir:] "If you're good," I said. "And if you get discovered."
[Baba:] "How likely is that, getting discovered?"
"It happens," I said.
He nodded. "And what will you do while you wait to get good and get discovered? How will you earn money? If you marry, how will you support your khanum?"
I couldn't lift my eyes to meet his. "I'll...find a job."
"Oh," he said. "Wah wah! So, if I understand, you'll study several years to earn a degree, then you'll get a chatti job like mine, one you could just as easily land today, on the small chance that your degree might someday help you get...discovered." He took a deep breath and sipped his tea. Grunted something about medical school, law school, and "real work." (11.47-57)
Amir has to be discouraged by Baba's response here. Majoring in Creative Writing – as Baba points out – won't land Amir a job and will likely force Amir to take a job he would qualify for now. Amir also won't be able to support a family with writing. All that sounds glum. But none of it compares, we think, with the proverbial drop-kick to the stomach Baba bestows on writing. "Stories, you mean. You'll make up stories." What is writing according to Baba? Fabrication. Writing sounds so silly when Baba says it that way. Is Baba's definition of writing reductive or is it clear-sighted? What is Baba missing about Amir's love for writing? Is he even been aware of Amir's love for writing?
Quote #8
"Amir is going to be a great writer," Baba said. I did a double take at this. "He has finished his first year of college and earned A's in all of his courses."
"Junior college," I corrected him.
"Mashallah," General Taheri said. "Will you be writing about our country, history perhaps? Economics?"
"I write fiction," I said, thinking of the dozen or so short stories I had written in the leather-bound notebook Rahim Khan had given me, wondering why I was suddenly embarrassed by them in this man's presence.
"Ah, a storyteller," the general said. "Well, people need stories to divert them at difficult times like this." (11.78-82)
The General intends to slam writing here as if he's a WWF wrestler and writing is a competitor who just insulted his mother. The General dismisses fiction as mere storytelling. As a diversion for people during "difficult times." How accurate is the General's comments? Does Amir write for diversion in "difficult times"? Do you think Amir feels guilty because he's not writing about Afghan history? Does The Kite Runner itself fulfill the General's requirements for serious writing? Or would the General call it mere storytelling?
Quote #9
One day, I came home from the pharmacy with Baba's morphine pills. Just as I shut the door, I caught a glimpse of Soraya quickly sliding something under Baba's blanket. "Hey, I saw that! What were you two doing?" I said.
"Nothing," Soraya said, smiling.
"Liar." I lifted Baba's blanket. "What's this?" I said, though as soon as I picked up the leather-bound book, I knew. I traced my fingers along the gold-stitched borders. I remembered the fireworks the night Rahim Khan had given it to me, the night of my thirteenth birthday, flares sizzling and exploding into bouquets of red, green, and yellow.
"I can't believe you can write like this," Soraya said.
Baba dragged his head off the pillow. "I put her up to it. I hope you don't mind."
I gave the notebook back to Soraya and left the room. Baba hated it when I cried. (11.36-41)
Baba finally hears Amir's stories after all these years. It's enough to move Amir to tears and enough to make us sniffle a little too. Hosseini also cleverly inserts a description of what good writing might be like: "Rahim Khan had given it to me, the night of my thirteenth birthday, flares sizzling and exploding into bouquets of red, green, and yellow." Doesn't fiction seem like that sometimes? The plot pauses and the prose bursts into a lyrical moment of ridiculous beauty.
Quote #10
"So what do you do in America, Amir agha?" Wahid asked.
"I'm a writer," I said. I thought I heard Farid chuckle at that.
"A writer?" Wahid said, clearly impressed. "Do you write about Afghanistan?"
"Well, I have. But not currently," I said. My last novel, A Season for Ashes, had been about a university professor who joins a clan of gypsies after he finds his wife in bed with one of his students. It wasn't a bad book. Some reviewers had called it a "good" book, and one had even used the word "riveting." But suddenly I was embarrassed by it. I hoped Wahid wouldn't ask what it was about.
"Maybe you should write about Afghanistan again," Wahid said. "Tell the rest of the world what the Taliban are doing to our country."
[Amir:] "Well, I'm not...I'm not quite that kind of writer." (19.51-56)
We think the plot of A Season for Ashes might be the most ridiculous plot ever. How could Amir not feel guilty as an Afghan writer (or even as a writer in general)? He's not writing about his homeland, or the devastation and destruction there, but instead about a professor who joins a troupe of gypsies. That's silly. We see how A Season for Ashes could be a serious book – both funny and heartbreaking at the same time – but the book seems to have nothing to do with Amir's life. It's "fiction" in the worst sense.