kite runner

• Neither one of us said anything as we sat under our pomegranate tree.
• I shouldn't have come up the hill.
• Amir's betrayal of Hassan can be seen in terms of class, as he reduces Hassan's worth to his class.
• At the end of the novel, Amir adopts Sohrab, potentially symbolising his bridging of class divides.
• The words I'd carved on the tree trunk with Ali's kitchen knife, Amir and Hassan: The Sultans of Kabul.
• I couldn't stand looking at them now.
• Amir feels healed at last after standing up to Assef and making up for his past mistakes.
• Racial prejudices, such as those exemplified by Assef, drive violent decision making and affect Amir's response to events.
• Sanaubar's redemption occurs when Hassan and Sanaubar reunite and she is nursed back to health.
• Amir returns to religion, praying that his sins have not caught up with him.
• Taheri and K are key characters in the novel.
• Sanaubar is depicted as a notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonorable reputation.
• I hurled the pomegranate at him, it struck him in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp.
• Amir’s regret for not stepping in when witnessing Hassan being raped, his longing for their friendship after it has been damned by his inaction and
• Amir’s return to Afghanistan- notices the difference, reminisces his old life
• Amir and Sohrab flying kites by the end of the novel- amir and Hassan running kites as children, Hassan and Sohrab flying kites before his murder
• Rahim Khans narration- chap 16
• Use of flashbacks, first chapter in present time- rewinds to past
• Hassan's cry was pregnant with surprise and pain.
• I wished he'd give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night.
• Hassan did nothing as I pelted him again and again.
• I let the tears break free, rocked back and forth on my knees.
• Hassan knew that when the bandages were removed and the hospital garments returned, he was just another homeless Hazara orphan.
• Sohrab never accepted my offer to take him to America, nor did he decline it.
• Afghans can be taken out of Paghman, but they can't be taken out of Paghman.
• A half-dozen kites were flying high, speckles of bright yellow, red, and green against the gray sky.
• Sawl-e-Nau mubabrak, the kite seller said, taking the twenty and handing me the kite and a wooden spool of glass tar.
• I thanked him and wished him a Happy New Year too.
• I tested the string by holding it between my thumb and forefinger and pulling it, it reddened with blood and the kite seller smiled.
• The resolution of conflict with Assef is a showdown.
• The novel can be interpreted as a protest novel, questioning if Amir and Sohrab's escape, living peacefully in America, is a form of resistance against the Taliban.
• The death of other characters, such as Baba, Hassan, and Rahim Khan, is ambiguous in that their half is never shared.
• Through the depiction of Amir's journey of betrayal and potential redemption, the ambiguity of the ending allows us to impose our own view on whether Amir reaches redemption.
• In terms of social and political protest, the ambiguous ending questions if characters are ultimately successful - is Amir and Sohrab's escape, living peacefully in America a form of resistance against the Taliban?
• Key quotes include 'In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered', 'If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab and me ends with happiness, I wouldn't know what to say', 'last Sunday's tiny miracle' - Sohrab's smile, 'The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son', 'Sohrab's smile, a leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight', 'For you, a thousand times over', 'I ran, a grown man running with a swarm of screaming children', 'Afghanistan becoming a republic in 1973 was a coup de tat', 'Th
• The arrival of Sohrab in America marks the end of conflict and a shift away from Afghanistan.
• I took the kite to where Sohrab was standing, still leaning against the garbage pail, arms crossed on his chest.
• Kamal's father shoved the barrel in his own mouth, and I'll never forget the echo of that blast, the flashcard>
• Kamal's lifeless body lay on his father's lap, his right hand, uncurled and limp, bounced to the rhythm of his father's sobs.
• Sanaubar's brilliant green eyes and impish face had, rumor has it, tempted countless men into sin.