I have a hard time imagining a country or a government where I would say, "Oh, this is good," where I could live under a government that I respect for a day or a week, even to see what it feels like.

Writing is a mode of agency in the world that is different from mere employment. There has to be some sort of ethical or moral drive, even if you are unaware of it.

Arabs are a complete abstraction in the propaganda world and all the death and destruction is completely unreal to Americans.

All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.

I am just like everybody else...because there is nobody like me in the whole world.

In some way there is no real life. It's always the story of your life that you're living.

I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.