True redemption is...when guilt leads to good.

I entered the literary world, really, from outside. My entire background has been in sciences; I was a biology major in college, then went to medical school. I've never had any formal training in writing. So what I know about writing, I know from my own instincts, and whatever the narrative voice is in my own head.

Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you liquids. No fart, no food.

I didn't remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become.

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.

It's tremendous what can happen when suddenly you make an emotional connection.

Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.