Khaled Hosseini Quotes

The fiction is not autobiographical. Maybe to some extent it is, of course.

You can look at my autobiographical pieces as source books... But, you see, my fiction doesn't revolve around autobiographical questions.

I'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, 'Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!' I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!

All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at the same time, a novel is never autobiographical even if it describes the life of the author. Literary writing is a completely different medium.

... any fictionis bound to be transposed autobiography.

There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.

While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart. Like my other books, 'The Lemon Orchard' is inspired by something I care about. I care so deeply. The stories are my dreams, and I want to do a lot of research. Roberto is based on a real live friend of mine named Armando who worked in my garden.

My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.

Writers can take offense when someone asks what's real or autobiographical in our work because, to us, that's not what counts. The bits taken from life are tiny scales on the dragon's tail - what about that whole beautiful writhing, fire-breathing dragon?

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

Though my stories aren't autobiographical, I do sometimes use things from my life.

Writers do draw inspiration from their own lives, which, quite frankly, might be more interesting than fiction.

Everything is autobiographical, and nothing is autobiographical. That's fiction.

I like inventing things when I write rather than autobiography.

Basically you come up with the fictional idea and you start writing that story, but then in order to write it and to make it seem real, you sometimes put your own memories in. Even if it's a character that's very different from you.

The idea that an author can extricate her or his own ongoing life experience from the tale being written is a conceit of very little worth.

The trite answer is that everything is true but none of it happened. It is emotionally true, but the events, the plotting, the narrative, isn't true of my life, though I've experienced most of the emotions experienced by the characters in the play.

Novelists are too often assumed to write veiled autobiography.

A lot of things that I write about have happened to people around me, if not necessarily to me or in the organizations I've worked in. Having said that, it's fiction and has a lot to do with my imagination and creativity.

Find me a first novel that doesn't have parallels with the author's life.

Every story we remember is a novel. Novels make things more universal.

'Annapurna' is a sort of novel. It's a novel, but a true novel.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

Like all writers, I draw from life as I know it; but it's a refracted kind of reality, and none of it is factually true.

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'