She was one of those people who are irrevocably, incurably honest and therefore both inflexible and vulnerable at the same time.

i could have told him to learn from Gatsby. from the lonely, isolated Gatsby, who also tried to retrieve his past and give flash and blood to a fancy, a dream that was never meant to be more than a dream.

We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle.

Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.

I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination.

That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

When I walked down the streets, I asked myself, are these my people?, is this my hometown, am I who I am?