I'd rather create a miniature painting than a Taj Mahal of a book.

In some contexts in Pakistan maybe a beard is negative. It depends. And in some contexts in America maybe a beard is positive. I think there's certainly lots of hipster communities where having a beard makes me look a little bit less like a, you know, middle-aged fuddy-duddy. And there's some places in Pakistan where having a beard, you know, certain corporate contexts, certain social contexts, where it's not an advantage to have a beard.

When the uncertain future becomes the past, the past in turn becomes uncertain.

Chance plays a powerful role in every life - our brains and personalities are just chemical soup, after all; a few drops here or there matter enormously - but consequences often become more serious as income levels go down.

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.

My aunt used to say, "It's between me and my god; it's got nothing to do with you." It was a good enough answer for me as a snot-nosed college kid angling for a religious debate, and I still think it's a good way of putting it.

The anger is useful too because when things about the world upset you, that is really a fertile feeling to channel into fiction and to put out into books.