THEME QUOTE
Friendsh ‘Hassan never denied me anything’
ip
‘He never told on me’
‘There was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same
breast’
‘Mine was Baba. His was Amir’
‘Ali and Baba grew up together as childhood playmates… just like Hassan
and I’
‘In none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend’
‘We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us’
‘No history, ethnicity, society or religion was going to change that’
‘For you a thousand times over!’
‘To him, you’re nothing but an ugly pet’
‘Something happy… Hassan and I’
‘Hassan had no intention of moving into the house’
Betrayal ‘Didn’t all fathers in their secret hearts harbour a desire to kill their sons?’
‘He was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass’
‘Eat dirt if I told you to’
‘In the end, I ran’
‘Have you ever thought about getting new servants?’
‘The last in a long line of shameful lies’
‘He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again’
‘This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me’
‘There is a way to be good again’
‘My whole life is one big fucking lie!’
‘You promised you’d never put me in one of those places’
Warfare ‘Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs
and gunfire’
‘You couldn’t trust anyone in Kabul anymore’
‘As close as you could get to that proverbial hell on earth’
‘A bone-jarring ride down a teetering pass’
‘Rubble and beggars’
‘Shredded burlap rags, mud-caked hands’
‘Jadeh Maywand had turned into a giant sandcastle’
‘A bullet-pocked sign half buried at an angle in a heap of debris’
‘Flanked with little more than ruins’
‘I saw a dead body… hardly anyone seemed to notice him’
‘The Taliban scurried like rats into the caves’
Principle ‘Baba saw the world in black and white’
s
‘A maverick who had disregarded or embraced societal customs as he had
seen fit’
‘There is only one sin, only one’
‘He never fights back. Never’
‘War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it’