Kabul Quotes

“Furthermore, I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens they've put on us, that's the most degrading. The Shirt of Nessus woudn't do as much damage to my dignity as that wretched getup. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I'm me Zunaira, Mohsen Ramat's wife, age thirty-two, former magistrate, dismissed by obscurantists without a hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay attention to my clothes. If I put that damned veil on, I'm neither a human being nor an animal, I'm just an affront, a disgrace, a blemish that has to be hidden. That's too hard to deal with. Especially for someone who was a lawyer, who worked for women's rights. Please, I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm putting on some sort of act. I'd like to, you know, but unfortunately my heart's not in it anymore. Don't ask me to give up my name, my features, the color of my eyes, and the shape of my lips so I can take a walk through squalor and desolation. Don't ask me to become something less than a shadow, an anonymus thing rustling around in a hostile place.”
― Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul

“Look, look at my country, look at my Kabul, my city, what is left of my city? The streets are as bare as mountains now, the buildings are as ragged as mountains and as bare and empty of life, there is no life here only fear, we do not live in the buildings now, we live in terror in the cellars in the caves in the mountains, only God can save us now, only order can save us now, only God's Law harsh and strictly administered can save us now, only The Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice can save us now, only terror can save us from ruin, only neverending war, save us from terror and neverending war, save my wife they are stoning my wife, they are chasing her with sticks, save my wife save my daughter from punishment by God, save us from God, from war, from exile, from oil exploration, from no oil exploration, from the West, from the children with rifles, carrying stones, only children with rifles, carrying stones, can save us now.”
― Tony Kushner

“I looked westward and marveled that, somewhere over those mountains, Kabul still existed. It really existed, not just as an old memory, or as the heading of an AP story on page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle.”
― Khaled Hosseini

“war. Or, rather, wars. Not one, not two, but many wars, both big and small, just and unjust, wars with shifting casts of supposed heroes and villains, each new hero making one increasingly nostalgic for the old villain. The names changed, as did the faces, and I spit on them equally for all the petty feuds, the snipers, the land mines, bombing raids, the rockets, the looting and raping and killing.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“On August 10, 1984, my plane landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. There were no skyscrapers here. The blue domes of the mosques and the faded mountains were the only things rising above the adobe duvals (the houses). The mosques came alive in the evening with multivoiced wailing: the mullahs were calling the faithful to evening prayer. It was such an unusual spectacle that, in the beginning, I used to leave the barracks to listen – the same way that, in Russia, on spring nights, people go outside to listen to the nightingales sing. For me, a nineteen-year-old boy who had lived his whole life in Leningrad, everything about Kabul was exotic: enormous skies – uncommonly starry – occasionally punctured by the blazing lines of tracers. And spread out before you, the mysterious Asian capital where strange people were bustling about like ants on an anthill: bearded men, faces darkend by the sun, in solid-colored wide cotton trousers and long shirts. Their modern jackets, worn over those outfits, looked completely unnatural. And women, hidden under plain dull garments that covered them from head to toe: only their hands visible, holding bulging shopping bags, and their feet, in worn-out shoes or sneakers, sticking out from under the hems.

And somewhere between this odd city and the deep black southern sky, the wailing, beautifully incomprehensible songs of the mullahs. The sounds didn't contradict each other, but rather, in a polyphonic echo, melted away among the narrow streets. The only thing missing was Scheherazade with her tales of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights ... A few days later I saw my first missile attack on Kabul. This country was at war.”
― Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier's Story

“Advisers were numberless in Kabul, like stray dogs in Mumbai.”
― Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know

“Citoyen suisse né à... Kaboul (un roman en soi), j’ai l’outrecuidance d’écrire dans cette langue qui depuis ma vie de lycéen jusque l’âge certain de la retraite a constitué une de mes véritables passions. Ma matrice intellectuelle était forgée par des Français.

Mon premier livre "Au-delà des mers salées... Un désir de liberté" est une autobiographie romancée. Mes propres pérégrinations servant de fil conducteur à l’odyssée d’un jeune Afghan sorti de la «caverne de Platon» de Kaboul pour affronter les réalités occidentales (un peu «Lettres persanes» à l’envers. Avec, en toile de fond, la face jamais dévoilée de l’Afghanistan «d’avant». L’histoire de l’obsolète royaume ne commençant pas, dans mon optique, avec l’invasion du pays par les armées soviétiques.”
― Fateh Emam, Au-delà des mers salées... Un désir de liberté

“Sen beni her zaman reddedip, zayıf, şüpheli arzuların tehlikesinden kurtararak günden güne senin tarafından kabul edilmeye layık bir hale getiriyorsun.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

“I know what I said earlier, but Kabul isn’t that bad.” Mrs. Wahdati toyed with her necklace absently. She was looking out the window, a heaviness set on her features. “I like it best here at the end of spring, after the rains. The air so clean. That first burst of summer. The way the sun hits the mountains.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Bố không thể tin rằng mình đang rời bỏ Kabul. Bố học ở đây, kiếm được công việc đầu tiên ở đây, trở thành một người bố ở thành phố này. Thật lạ lùng khi nghĩ đến chuyện chẳng bao lâu bố sẽ ngủ dưới một bầu trời thành phố khác.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Korkunç olması gerekenin sıradanlığındayız.”
― Ozan Önen, Babam Beni Şahdamarımdan Öptü

“(...) Kabulul devenise pentru mine un oraș al fantomelor. Un oraș al fantomelor cu buze de iepure.
America era diferită. America era un fluviu impetuos, nepăsător cu trecutul. Puteam să mă scufund în fluviul ăsta, să-mi las păcatele să se înece la fund, să las apele să mă ducă undeva, departe. Undeva unde nu sunt nici fantome, nici amintiri, nici păcate.
Chiar și numai pentru asta, am adoptat America.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“ვინ მოსთვლის მოციმციმე მთვარეებს, ქალაქის სახურავებს რომ დაჰნათის,
ან ათას მოელვარე მზეს, მის კედლებს თავშეფარებულს. - საებ თაბრიზის ლექსი ქაბულზე”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“… babam bir canavardı ve çocukluğumuz boyunca kardeşlerimle birlikte bizi dehşete düşürürdü. Ama sonunda, anılarımı olduğu gibi bırakmaya ve hiçbirini silmemeye karar verdim. Çektiğim tüm o berbat istismara rağmen, hayal bile edemeyeceğim bir başarıya ulaştım. Bir yerlerde, bir şekilde, büyük bir dayanıklılık ve beceri geliştirdim. Bu, babama rağmen mi oldu? Yoksa onun sayesinde mi?”
Bu hayal, geçmişe dair bakışında büyük bir değişimin ilk adımıydı. Bu, babasını affetme meselesinden çok, geçmişin değiştirilemezliğiyle yüzleşme meselesiydi. Ona, er ya da geç daha iyi bir geçmiş umudundan vazgeçmek zorunda kalacağını söylediğimde sarsıldı. Evde karşılaştığı zorluklar tarafından şekillenmiş ve sertleşmişti; bu zorluklarla başa çıkmayı öğrenmiş ve yaşamı boyunca kendisine çok faydası dokunan yaratıcı stratejiler geliştirmişti.”
― Irvin Yalom (Author)