A Man's Heart Is A Wretched, Wretched

People Talk About Apathy, Especially In Developed Countries. We're Kind Of Lulled Into These Tranquil Lives, And We Are Pursuing Our Own Thing And There Is So Much Suffering On A Mass Scale Around The World That You Kind Of Become Fatalistic. You Might Think Suffering Is Inevitable, You Kind Of Lose Your Sense Of Moral Urgency. But There Is Always Something You Can Do For Someone In The World.

I Did See [in Afghanistan] Plenty That Reminded Me Of My Childhood. I Recognised My Old Neighbourhood, Saw My Old School, Streets Where I Had Played With My Brother And Cousins.

Like A Compass Needle That Points North, A Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds A Woman. Always.

I Wanted To Tell Them That, In Kabul, We Snapped A Tree Branch And Used It As A Credit Card. Hassan And I Would Take The Wooden Stick To The Bread Maker. He'd Carve Notches On Our Stick With His Knife, One Notch For Each Loaf Of Naan He'd Pull For Us From The Tandoor's Roaring Flames. At The End Of The Month, My Father Paid Him For The Number Of Notches On The Stick. That Was It. No Questions. No Id.

There [in The Kite Runner] Certainly Are, As Is Always The Case With Fiction, Autobiographical Elements Woven Through The Narrative.