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Quote by Khaled Hosseini

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Sea Prayer

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Author

Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist, best known for his novel 'The Kite Runner,' which has become a global bestseller. The story, centered around themes of friendship, betrayal, and redemption, has resonated with readers worldwide. Hosseini's works often focus on the history and culture of Afghanistan, as well as the complexities of human nature. more

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“This is a world war, unleashed by Russia to overturn the modern liberal world order. It has many open and hidden global supporters, and there are neutral countries that are watching carefully to see how this challenge that has been thrown down to mankind pans out. The war in Ukraine is merely the prelude, and it does not matter whether Putin’s regime triumphs (whatever he might call ‘a victory’) or he has to back down, he will continue to try to break the modern world, by using either ‘hybrid wars’ or open aggression, information sabotage or nuclear blackmail, until he suffers a decisive military defeat and the regime is utterly destroyed. What we have come up against here is not a temporary aberration, not the madness of a dictator who has overplayed his hand - nor is it simply the nostalgia of the older generation of Russians; it is a tectonic geopolitical process in the protracted decay of a huge Eurasian empire.”

“All that is done in the name of the revolution is valuable, progressive, and positive because the value and progress of the revolution is unquestionable. It is an inviolable fetish and cult. During the war, the most important virtue for a member of the Communist Party was bravery; after the war it became "revolutionary spirit." And this meant the uncompromising (and ruthless) execution of party decisions, regardless of whether they matched the convictions of the person carrying them out, whether in his opinion they were useful or harmful, wise or stupid, whether they carried within themselves good or evil. Such a revolution, and perhaps every revolution, by its victory carries within itself its own death.”

“Once again, the Empire of Russia has defeated the nation. It is important to recognize it now, when Russia is suffering a moral, military and, broadly speaking, civilizational defeat in Ukraine. The attack on Ukraine is a fiasco of the still-born idea of ‘the Russian world,’ russky mir, as one lot of Russian speakers bomb, torture and shoot other Russian speakers; as they burn Orthodox churches and demolish Russian-speaking cities of Mariupol and Kherson. This is not a war for Russia but for the re-establishment of the Empire, a war of revenge on Ukrainians (it is even crueller, because they are considered ‘one of us,’ ‘our brothers’) for daring to think that they could break away and follow their own path.”

“Son, there’s nothing right about war. Nothing good ever comes of it. And I’m no hero. Anyone who rallies for war, for so many guns in men’s hands, has never stood shivering in his boots in the middle of a battlefield. And anyone who fights simply to be a man ain’t a man. He doesn’t have enough compassion.” I start to understand then. Maybe it’s war that makes Grandpa look sad sometimes. Maybe it’s the thought that it can happen at any moment or the thought that there will always be war that makes him appear melancholy, like on those afternoons he sits stone-faced in his recliner while Hank Williams’ lonesome voice fills the house, singing of the blue whippoorwill and the weeping robin. Maybe Grandpa wants me to realize that being a soldier doesn’t make someone a hero or a man, but having compassion does.”

“The leaderships on both sides have everyone in a trap. They too are trapped. If Palestine Authority leaders repeatedly made statements strongly condemning all violence, many of those subject to checkpoint humiliations, night raids and house demolitions might switch support to Hamas. An Israeli government ending all repression might be accused of betrayal of Zionism. Two peoples, two leaderships, a four-way entrapment. I hope there are political scientists and game theorists working out escape strategies. Meanwhile some pessimism seems hard to avoid.”

“The Bright Lights of Sarajevo After the hours that Sarajevans pass queuing with empty canisters of gas to get the refills they wheel home in prams, or queuing for the precious meagre grams of bread they’re rationed to each day, and often dodging snipers on the way, or struggling up sometimes eleven flights of stairs with water, then you’d think the nights of Sarajevo would be totally devoid of people walking streets Serb shells destroyed, but tonight in Sarajevo that’s just not the case The young go walking at stroller’s pace, black shapes impossible to mark as Muslim, Serb or Croat in such dark, in unlit streets you can’t distinguish who calls bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh. All take the evening air with stroller’s stride no torches guide them, but they don’t collide except as one of the flirtatious ploys when a girl’s dark shape is fancied by a boy’s. Then the tender radar of the tone of voice shows by its signals she approves his choice. Then match or lighter to a cigarette to check in her eyes if he’s made progress yet. And I see a pair who’ve certainly progressed beyond the tone of voice and match-flare test and he’s about, I think, to take her hand and lead her away from where they stand on two shell scars, where, in ‘92 Serb mortars massacred the breadshop queue and blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread lay on this pavement with the broken dead. And at their feet in holes made by the mortar that caused the massacre, now full of water from the rain that’s poured down half the day, though now even the smallest clouds have cleared away leaving the Sarajevo star-filled evening sky ideally bright and clear for bomber’s eye in those two rain-full shell-holes the boy sees fragments of the splintered Pleiades, sprinkled on those death-deep, death-dark wells splashed on the pavement by Serb mortar shells. The dark boy-shape leads dark girl-shape away to share one coffee in a candlelit café until the curfew, and he holds her hand behind AID flour-sacks refilled with sand”