Quotes About Identity

She understood then 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 as love, family, home, acceptance.

Má»™t khi ta tr? thành ai Ä'ó, con ng??i cÅ© c?a ta cÅ©ng ch?t Ä'i.

She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last.

Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people's lives. My whole life, I had been "Baba's son." Now he was gone. Baba couldn't show me the way anymore; I'd have to find it on my own. The thought of it terrified me.

I foresaw my life unfolding as an interminable stretch of nothingness and so I spent my years on Tinos floundering, feeling like a stand-in for myself, a proxy, as though my real self resided elsewhere, waiting to unite someday with this dimmer, more hollow self. I felt marooned. An exile in my own home

The kinship I felt suddenly for the old land . . . it surprised me . . . I thought I had forgotten about this land. But I hadn't. . . . Maybe Afghanistan hadn't forgotten me either.

You? You've always been a tourist here, you just didn't know it.

Kinderen zijn geen kleurboeken. Je kunt ze niet met je lievelingskleuren inkleuren.

They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind. And now that I had fulfilled mine, I felt aimless and adrift.

The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980s: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules.

What I really wished I had was a twin, someone who'd cried next to me in the crib, slept beside me, fed from Mother's breast with me. Someone to love helplessly and totally, and in whose face I could always find myself.

if culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without proper home or a legimate identity.

He said I would appreciate later the gift he was giving me. He said that if culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

I watched Baba's car pull away from the curb, taking with it the person whose first spoken word had been my name.

But, miraculously, something of her former life remained, her last link to the person she had been before she had become so utterly alone. A part of Tariq still alive inside her, sprouting tiny arms, growing translucent hands.

She was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home..

Les enfants ne sont pas des livres de coloriage. Tu ne peux pas les peindre avec tes couleurs préférées. The kite runner

Tidak ada salahnya menjadi seorang pengecut selama kau tetap berhati-hati. Tapi bila seorang pengecut mulai melupakan siapa dirinya .... Semoga Tuhan melindunginya.

Laila lay there and listened, wishing Mammy would notice that she, Laila, hadn't become shaheed, that she was alive, here, in bed with her, that she had hopes and a future. But Laila knew that her future was no match for her brothers' past. They had overshadowed her in life. They would obliterate her in death. Mammy was now the curator of their lives' museum and she, Laila, a mere visitor. A receptacle for their myths. The parchment on which Mammy meant to ink their legends.

Me ardía la cara. Ahí estaba de nuevo mi pasado; mi pasado era así, siempre volvía a aparecer. Su nombre surgía desde lo más profundo de mi ser, pero no quería pronunciarlo por temor a que se materializara.

But it is important to know this, to know your roots. To know where you started as a person. If not, your own life seems unreal to you. Like a puzzle.

I didn't know what the other guy was playing for, maybe just bragging rights. But this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard.

Not that they give a damn in America, mind you. What do they care that Pashtuns and Hazaras and Tajiks and Uzbeks are killing each other? How many Americans can even tell one from the other? Don't expect help from them, I say. Now that the Soviets have collapsed, we're no use to them. We served our purpose. To them, Afghanistan is a kenarab, a shit hole. Excuse my language, but it's true.

In the mirror, Mariam had her first glimpse of Rasheed: the big, square, ruddy face; the crooked nose; the flushed cheeks that gave the impression of sly cheerfulness; the watery, bloodshot eyes; the crowded teeth, the front two pushed together like a gables roof; the impossible low hairline, barely two fingers widths above the bushy eyebrows; the wall of thick, coarse, salt-and-pepper hair. Their gazes met briefly in the glass and slid away. This is the face of my husband, Mariam thought.