“There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
This sentence captivated because it's one of those that sums up so many controversial and burdoning conflicts we have with ourselves and others in just one sentence and one compressed ideology. For those who follow Catholic, Christian, Judaism, and other religions that live by trying to follow the Ten Commandments, this line from Khaled takes ten points and makes them one--and it works, it makes sense. And that's how he made it work: took all the mess and compressed it into one simple concept.
I admire writers that can explain so much is so little space. It is not one of my strong points so when I see an example well done, I can't help but hover over it for a while, admiring.
In the end, every sin out there boils done to one: Stealing. You kill a man, you steal his right to live. When you commit adultery, you steal your spouse's right to you.
In my imitation, I strove to keep it short and simple like Khaled in his original. I used his concept and applied to other sins not mentioned in his sentence to show, further, how the concept worked.
I enjoy the hypotaxis in "There is only one sin. And that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth", that sort of stylistically represents the idea that sin is sin, and all sins are equal (all are theft). I imagine in continuing it would say, murder is theft of life, adultery is theft of sanctity of marriage - and your own respectability, and so on. Here's to syntactic hierarchy and using it to emphasize a point!
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