She was struggling against a current that brought her inside herself.

NYC doesn't have a big sign saying "You must love diversity and the rights of all people." And that's not what makes you love diversity in NYC or anywhere. What makes you love diversity is because you live in it and you experience it.

Novel writing is solitary work.

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture.

I was 30 when 9/11 happened and I had lived exactly 15 years of life in America, so I was half American. I was a full-fledged New Yorker.

It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.

Readers don't work for writers. They work for themselves.