The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son.

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

Literature helps us transcend ourselves.

My mother has been to Mecca to perform her hajj; my dad hasn't. I come from a very liberal family, so even the people who are outwardly religious tend to subscribe to gender equality, the importance of open-mindedness, all that stuff. My family is generally nonprescriptive.

And also I think the rise of other, you could say, destinations for international jihadis mean that Pakistan isn't necessarily the place where people from all over the world who want to engage in these activities gravitate to. They're going now to places like Syria or Yemen Libya, elsewhere.

I think writing is a very political act. I think that any writer who says it's not, is simply a writer who is disavowing the political connotations of what they write.

As a writer, I am constantly aware that I take my life in my hands with everything I do and say. It's just a fact of life. For me it always has been.