Kite Runner 5

“If this were one of the Hindi movies Hassan and I used to watch, this was the part where I’d run outside, my bare feet splashing rainwater. I’d chase the car, screaming for it to stop. I’d pull Hassan out of the backseat and tell him I was sorry, so sorry, my tears mixing with the rainwater. We’d hug in the downpour. But this was no Hindi movie. I was sorry, but I didn’t cry and I didn’t chase the car.”

This quote really struck me. In the movies, people do the right thing, try to save relationships, and open up about their feelings. In real life, it is harder to open up that way. The risk of getting hurt or denied by someone else seems to outweigh the benefits of expressing how we feel. We don’t always stand up for our friends, we don’t always try to keep loved ones from leaving, and we definitely don’t always let others know how much we feel for them. I wish we did, because there are a lot of relationships in this world which could have worked out had the two parties just sat down and worked things out. I am in some of these “relationships”, or lack thereof. Amir recognizes that he is about to lose someone that is key to his life, but he lets him go anyways.

Kite Runner 4

“I was the smart one. Hassan couldn’t read a first-grade textbook but he’d read me plenty.”

Sometimes school education isn’t the most important thing. It teaches you about the ways of the world, but it doesn’t always teach you how to react to the world. Hassan had no education, and yet his skills with people were much stronger than Amir’s. It is more important to be able to aid someone in their life problems than with their math problems. No matter how good a person might feel when they ace a test, it is not comparable to how happy they could feel by making a connection with another person. Human connection is the most important thing. Education certainly aids us in our connections, providing people with an opportunity to meet others and giving them the knowledge to make it through life comfortably. But it is certainly not everything.

Kite Runner 3

“War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.”

This quote is an aphorism. Baba is the character in the book who seems to offer wisdom to not only the other characters, but also the reader. This quote embodies the truth about war, a thing that has been all too common for many years. When times are hard, it seems easier to lash out and behave like there are no consequences. But just because it is a time of struggle for you does not mean that the victim of your indecency is not also struggling. By treating each other with kindness, people will feel better about themselves and the situation they are in. It is not a cure, but a remedy. And until there is a cure for war, a remedy to subdue the aches and pains will have to do.

Kite Runner 2

“Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear, I knew it wasn’t just Rahim Khan on the other line. It was my past of unatoned sins.”

It could be said the Amir is an antihero, although he is the narrator of the book. He lacks many of the qualities which a hero should have, such as courage and strong morals. When he sees Hassan being assaulted in the alley by Assef, he does not have the courage to stop it. Even his presence could have stopped the boys because he knew Assef’s family. Instead, he decides to act like he never saw it and runs away. He also lacks morals. Although it is eventually figured that Hassan knows that Amir saw, he never apologizes to him. He also has not yet confessed to anyone what he saw, which would be the proper thing to do. He is not an unlikeable character, just one that does not fit into the mold of hero. This actually makes him more relatable to the reader, because a lot of people have had moments where they lacked the courage to do the right thing.

Kite Runner 1

“I wasn’t worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief.”

Amir deals with internal conflict through the majority of the book. After he failed to help his friend Hassan fight off Assef, he feels like he is a very unworthy person. This thinking effects every future decision he makes, and Hassan comes to mind every time he has a happy moment. He thinks of how he does not deserve it, and where Hassan might be. This internal conflict is important to the plot of the book because did he not feel such guilt and hold such a dark secret, he might not have married Soraya, and he might have had children. His internal conflict matches up with the external conflict in his homeland of Afghanistan. As he moves to America, he begins to view both as something of his past, but it still unable to move on from them. The events that happen in the past are the biggest influence on the future, and Amir knows this, but doesn’t recognize when it occurs in his own life.