A Thousand Splendid Suns Quotes

Mammy didn't understand. She didn't understand that if she looked into a mirror, she would find the one unfailing conviction of [Babi's] life looking right back at her. (2.21.59)

"And that, my young friends, is the story of our country, one invader after another […] Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing looks pretty to look at, but st...

Learn this now and learn this well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. (1.1.26)

"What good are all your smarts to you now? What's keeping you off the streets, your smarts or me? I'm despicable? Half the women in the city would kill to have a husband like me. They would kill fo...

[Jalil] was fond of sitting her on his lap and telling her stories, like the time he told her that Herat, the city where Mariam was born, in 1959, had once been the cradle of Persian culture, the h...

"No matter. The point is, I am your husband now, and it falls on me to guard not only your honor but ours, yes, our nang and namoos. That is the husband's burden. You let me worry about that." (3.3...

She pictured herself in a classroom with other girls her age. Mariam longed to place a ruler on a page and draw important-looking lines. (1.3.26)

She understood what Nana meant, that a harami was an unwanted thing; that she, Mariam, was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such a...