It started out as something I had to read because it was on top of the list. But I grew fond of it, Surprisingly.

Kite Runner is about family, war, friendship, kindness, oppression, guilt, regret and redemption.

The story revolves around a boy named Amir Jan whose closest friend was the son of their servant, a Hazara as they call them. His closest friend was a Hazara named Hassan the son of Ali. Ali and Baba, Amir Jan’s father grew up together just as Hassan and Amir Jan also grew up in the same house and has fed in the same breasts. Hassan has always showed his affection, loyalty and respect to Amir Jan while several events showed that Amir Jan only sees Hassan as their servant. One day, their friendship was tested and that day was the start of how Amir Jan’s guilt will eat him up until the day Hassan will need him after several years.

I. Memorable Lines

1. The past claws its way out.
2. For you, a thousand times over.
3. There is a way to be good again.
4. Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.
5. You can’t love a person that way without fearing him too.
6. Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.
7. A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
8. Because history isn’t easy to overcome.
9. Because words are secret doorways.
10. Seconds plodded by each separated from the next by an eternity.
11. And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say, they think everyone else does too.
12. But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
13. I felt his glare on me like the heat of a blistering sun.
14. In the end, the world always wins.
15. War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it.
16. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.
17. It may be unfair, but sometimes what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day can change the course of a lifetime.
18. Sad stories make good books.
19. The benefit of her unblinking love.
20. My heart was doing pirouettes in my chest
21. Often, we wallow in too much self pity. We give in to loss, to suffering accept it as a fact of life, even see it as a necessary.
22. There is only what you do and what you don’t do.
23. It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.
24. A world of thanks.
25. Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
26. I wondered it that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

II. DISTURBING IDEAS

1. That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras. Hazaras had been decided that minute he had been born, perhaps even the moment he had been conceived.
2. 1. She said, ‘’I’m so afraid’.  I said, ‘Why?’’

   Because I’m so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening. They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.

III. YEARNING FOR A FATHER’S LOVE

1. Most days I worshiped baba with an intensity approaching the religious. But right then, I wished I could open my veins and drain his cursed blood from my body.
2. Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of existence.
3. I was going to win and I was going to run the last kite. Then I’d bring it home and show it to baba. Show him once and for all that his son was worthy. Then maybe my life as a ghost in this house would finally be over.
4. Maybe baba would even read one of my stories. I’d write him a hundred if I though he’d read one.
5. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing baba on that roof, proud of me at last.

IV. TIMES HASSAN STOOD UP FOR AMIR JAN

1. Remember Amir Agha. There’s no monster, just a beautiful day.
2. ‘’Hassan, come back with the last kite!’’ ‘’For you, a thousand times over!’’
3. When Hassan said ”I did, Amir Agha”. He admitted to stealing the money Amir Jan placed under his pillow.
4. When Hassan assaulted and threatened Assef with his sling shot when Assef was about to beat the crap out of Amir Jan.
5. When Hassan said ”It’s the most beautiful story I have ever heard! Did you write that, Amir Jan?” about the first story Amir Jan wrote.
6. All the mornings he prepared his breakfast and ironed his clothes.

V. TIMES AMIR JAN PUSHED HASSAN AWAY

1. ‘’Baba, have you ever thought about getting new servants?
2. ‘’What would you od if I hit you with this?(pomegranate) I hurled the pomegranate at him. It struck him in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp. ‘’Hit me back’’ I snapped. Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked towards me, opened it and crushed it against his forehead. ‘’There, are you satisfied? Do you feel better now?’’.
3. I took a couple of the envelopes of cash from the pile of gifts and my watch. I went downstairs and entered Ali and Hassan’s living quarters. I lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted the watch and the cash.
4. When Amir Jan played at Hassan. Teaching him the opposite meaning of words just because he knows Hassan has no ability to read nor write.
5. When Amir Jan purposedly making up the rest of the story in the book making it appear he has been reading from the book.
6. When Amir Jan stood there, doing nothing, being coward, just staring and watching at Assef pumping his manhood at the rear end of Hassan.

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right; it didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight.

But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when the spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time.