Amir Quotes

“With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.”

“That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

“A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”

‘‘‘I know,’ he said, breaking our embrace. ‘Inshallah, we’ll celebrate later. Right now, I’m going to run that blue kite for you,’ he said. He dropped the spool and took off running, the hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow behind him. ‘Hassan!’ I called. ‘Come back with it!’ He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘For you a thousand times over!’ he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.”

“Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended.”

“My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.”

“Then he saw me and waved. Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard, and took a picture of me with the school’s clock tower in the background. I smiled for him – in a way, this was his day more than mine. He walked to me, curled his arm around my neck, and gave my brow a single kiss. ‘I am moftakhir, Amir,’ he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look.”

“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t. I just watched. Paralyzed.”

“You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.”

“Some stories don’t need telling.”

“For me America was a place to bury memories. For Baba a place to mourn his.”

“I wondered if 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.”

“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.”

“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”

“Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don’t have to say anything”