Amir

"Maybe we are just waiting for all of us to be under the same roof again, in the house of Baba"

"But we were different, Hassan and I. I was Pashtun; he was Hazara"

"I wondered if God was listening"

"He had a harelip. It was like a stain on his face"

"I have a way to be good again. I have a way to end the cycle"

"I looked at the deserted street, and I had the sudden urge to drag him back to the study, shut the doors, and tell him everything"

"The cold water shocked the air right out of my lungs"

"We had both betrayed and been betrayed"

"I think we're all monsters, but the ones we find ways to live with are the ones we don't see every day"

"I could finally look back in the past without it causing me pain"

"I found them in the drawer of my nightstand, collecting dust"

"Assef is a sociopath. That's the difference between him and us"

"I was afraid of Assef and what he might do. But mostly I was afraid of looking at Hassan"

"I had one last chance to make it right. I had to take it"

"He stopped my breath. And he stopped it in more ways than one"

"I was going to be a father. A father to a boy who had already lost his mother"

"I looked at him and saw a man who had given everything to his son"

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"I opened my mouth. And I told him everything"

"How could I love and resent my father simultaneously?"

"I thought of all the things we had left unsaid, all the words that had died in my throat"

"I wondered what Hassan would think of me now. Would he forgive me?"

"I realized I had been running my whole life, from everything and everyone"