It is now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.

Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.

I think novelists, when they write their books, end up having occasionally serving a purpose and playing roles that they never really fully either intended or even understood.

I will say that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot of medical things that happen. A hip fracture, three different kinds of lung cancer, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and so on.

She would grab whatever she could -a look , a whisper , a moan - to salvage from perishing , to perserve. But time is most unforgivving of fires , and she couldn't , in the end , save it all .

I found myself sitting at the computer, and I thought I was going to write a kind of simple nostalgic story about two boys and their love of kite fighting. But stories have a will of their own, and this one turned out to be this dark tale about betrayal, loss, regret. The short story which was about 25 pages long sat around for a couple of years.

On a high mountain I stood, And cried the name of Ali, Lion of God.O Ali, Lion of God, King of Men, Bring joy to our sorrowful hearts.