"Afghanistan is the land of the Pashtuns. We're the real Afghans, not this flat-nosed Hazara. His people pollute our homeland. They dirty our blood. If idiots like you and your father hadn't taken these people in, we'd be rid of them."

"There is a way to be good again."

"I see America has infused you with her optimism. But there is such a thing as God's will."

"Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors."

"Fuck the Russia!"

"All this talk of sinning is making me thirsty."

"War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace."

"There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft....When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness."

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

"Who are we in this complicated world?"

"The citizens of Kabul were skeletons now. Skeletons selling naswar in the night market, skeletons drinking cups of strong tea, skeletons playing cards in the moonlight. They greeted me as I passed, teeth clacking together in their jaws. "Salaam, brother," they said. "Welcome home.""

"You see, General Sahib, my father slept with his servant's wife, and she bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. That boy sleeping in the other room is Hassan's son. He's my nephew. That's what you tell people when they ask. And one more thing, General Sahib: you will never again refer to him as "a Hazara boy" in my presence. He has a name, and it's Sohrab."

"I dream that my son will grow up to be a good person, a free person. I dream that someday you will return to revisit the land of our childhood. I dream that flowers will bloom in the streets again and kites will fly in the skies."

"For you, a thousand times over."

"There is no pain today."

"Instead of being a doctor and saving lives, my son wants to make up stories."

"[about the mullahs] I piss on the beards of those self-righteous monkeys."

"I wish Hassan had been with us today. That would make him happy."

"So rose the dreadful ghost from his next and blackest opera. There, on the stage, stood the figure of a dead commander. And I knew - only I understood - that the horrifying apparition was Leopold, raised from the dead! Wolfgang had summoned up his own father to accuse his son before all the world! It was terrifying and wonderful to watch. Now a madness began in me. A madness of a man splitting in half. Through my influence, I saw to it Don Giovanni was played five times in Vienna. But in secret, I went to every one of those five - all alone - unable to help myself, worshipping sound I alone seem to hear. And hour after hour, as I stood there, understanding even more clearly how that bitter old man was still possessing his poor son from beyond the grave, I began to see a way - a terrible way - I could finally triumph over God."

"[addressing a crucifix] From now on, we are enemies... You and I. Because You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because You are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block You, I swear it. I will hinder and harm Your creature on earth as far as I am able. I will ruin Your incarnation."

"[to Father Vogler] All I ever wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing... and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise Him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?"

"[about the beginning of the third movement of Mozart's Serenade No. 10] Extraordinary! On the page it looked nothing! The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons, basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. And then, suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took it over, sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I had never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God."

"While my father prayed earnestly to God, to "protect commerce", I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of: "Lord, make me a great composer. Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world, dear God. Make me immortal. After I die, let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return, I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life. Amen". And do you know what happened? A miracle!"

"That was Mozart. That! That giggling dirty-minded creature I had just seen, crawling on the floor!"

"Jeffrey Jones - Emperor Joseph II"

"Christine Ebersole - Katerina Cavalieri"

"Simon Callow - Emanuel Schikaneder"

"Roy Dotrice - Leopold Mozart"

"Elizabeth Berridge - Constanze Mozart"

"Tom Hulce - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart"

"F. Murray Abraham - Antonio Salieri"

"[from trailer] Are we going to appal you with something confidential and disgusting? Let's hope so, because that is what you really like. Unconfessed crimes of buried wickedness - if that is what brings you to us, the prospect of hearing horrors, you shall not go unrewarded."

"Everything you've heard is true."

"The man... The music... The magic... The madness... The murder... The mystery... The motion picture..."

"[to Father Vogler] I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint."