The experience of writing 'The Kite Runner' is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again.
For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.
My wife is my in-home editor and reads everything I write.
Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.
Afghan people are just so tired of war.
Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight.
I would like people to have an appreciation for what happened to women under the Taliban, as in 'A Thousand Splendid Suns.' I hope they get a sense of how connected we all are.
I was told bedtime stories by my father or my grandmother. Books, I mostly read on my own in bed.